


Anamnesis

by fractalserpentine, HopeofDawn



Series: Sound and Fury [4]
Category: Transformers, Transformers (Bay Movies), Transformers - All Media Types, Transformers Generation One
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Canon-Typical Violence, Fluff, Gen, Hatchlings, M/M, Medical Procedures, Sensuality, Sparklings, Surgery, Symbiotic Relationship, Tentacles, Warning: contains Ratbat
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-03-31
Updated: 2013-06-20
Packaged: 2017-11-02 20:17:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 60,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/372968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalserpentine/pseuds/fractalserpentine, https://archiveofourown.org/users/HopeofDawn/pseuds/HopeofDawn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set immediately after Sound and Fury.  Soundwave and co. rest and plot and repair, and Flipsides finds out what he's getting himself into.<br/>Ch1 - Present day, M for lengthy robot medical procedures, fluff<br/>Ch2 - Buzzsaw, comedy<br/>Ch3 - Ratbat, comedy<br/>Ch4, 5, 6 - Laserbeak, battlefield violence, repairs, hatchling comedy<br/>Ch7, 8, 9 - Sundor, fluff, action, sensuality</p><p>Ghostlight obeyed blindly, firing his maneuvering thrusters in sequence.  He nosed up, rolling--and the wave of charged particles caught the ship on its underside, pushing against the broad surfaces of the shuttlemech’s wings, flinging them away, further from the sucking draw of the wyrm’s gravitic pull and into the asteroid belt.  Buzzsaw and Sundor hung on as the ship beneath them jerked, tumbling--</p><p>And then the slagged remnants of the sensor array snapped underneath their talons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Soundwave led them to Maccadam’s.

He could not be certain if Amplitude was truly an ally, did not know if the resistance would be friend or foe -- but Soundwave desperately needed time to recover, to lay his plans, time to watch the broadcast reports and track the fallout from this rescue. And Amplitude had offered that time.

Maccadam’s Old Oil House was located a level above the Quandary, and Soundwave’s battered and char-streaked state drew a certain amount of very unwanted attention. From the shadows, he opened his armor briefly to dock Buzzsaw, and sent Laserbeak spiralling overhead to watch for any unusual activity. Ravage beside him and Flipsides clinging tight to his shoulder plates, Soundwave brushed off the worst of the stains of battle, and then walked in, as steadily as he was able.

Soundwave had been to the refinery before, of course -- back when his allotments had included such privileges. Even still, the place seemed different, as, in truth, it did every time Soundwave had come here. It was hard even to say for certain how big Maccadam’s truly was; hallways seen one moment seemed to vanish the next, a wall might be close or far away, a small cluster of drinking mecha at one glance was a crowd the next time one looked their way -- always subtle changes, but enough to make an alert viewer uneasy, feeling as if a hidden glitch had somehow worked its way into his processor.

The symbionts, oddly, never had much of a problem with Maccadam’s. But although Soundwave could perfectly access their memories of individual events that took place inside -- specific conversations and the like -- he could make no sense at all of their larger observations. Even Ravage, endlessly loyal and obedient, grew disinterested and frustrated when asked to explain what he’d seen of the the refinery itself. Eventually, Soundwave had given up asking.

Detour, it turned out, was a glossy yellow mech, small even for a mini and scarcely waist-high to Soundwave. He’d incorporated the wheels of his altmode low on his pedes, and switched deftly between skating and walking as he wove between groups of worried-looking mecha hunched over highgrade. When Soundwave transmitted the code he’d been given, the minibot stilled for a moment, sending a few encoded comm pulses, receiving others with a shrug. “Yeah, looks like you’re booked for an orn. This way,” he said, dropping off a tray of empty cubes and leading Soundwave down a hallway.

The yellow minibot swiped a passkey over the reader on one of the many irising doors, then handed the chit and a datapad up to Soundwave. “Have a pleasant stay,” Detour said blandly, and departed as the door irised open.

The datapad was old and battered, scraped by many talons. The screen was blank, save for a single line of glyphs.

_Friends appreciated your recent assistance.  
\--M_

The message--and its unknown sender--was more than enough to set Soundwave on edge, though Ravage seemed not to share his carrier’s concern. News might travel fast, but how --? Flipsides squeaked in surprise, getting a good look into the room. The chamber was by no means extravagant, was as worn as the datapad. But it was fairly large and clean, clearly meant for two mecha, with a wide berth and a small holo receiver in the corner. A clear silica door opened onto a small balcony, which looked onto a warren of alleys and walkways -- an easy launching area for jetframes and Seekers, as well as smaller flightframes and glideframes-- and a suitable means of escape, if necessary. There was a tray on a seating platform with a number of bottles and jars. And....

 _//Whazzit?//_ Ratbat jerked awake. _//Oil bath? I heard someone say oil bath?//_ The symbiont wriggled inside his dock, an oddly tickling sensation, not quite believing the others and eager to see for himself.

 _//Still all clear out here, Soundwave,//_ Laserbeak said, his comment over the bond coming through clearly.

 _//Soundwave: acknowledges.//_ Now that they were safely inside the room, he opened the armor over his docks, freeing Buzzsaw and Ratbat to roam as they pleased. _//Laserbeak: return. Ravage, Buzzsaw, Ratbat: check room, surrounding areas for surveillance.//_ Microdrones and remote listening equipment could have easily been concealed prior to their arrival. However, both Soundwave and his cohort had quite a few advantages at detecting such snooping devices. Flipsides also dropped down, intent on exploring this new environment, and Soundwave moved over to the balcony door, opening it to allow Laserbeak entrance.

 _//Assigned shifts for sentry duty, necessary,//_ he told all of the symbionts as they explored their surroundings, poking at bottles and corners and anything else that caught their interest, as their natures dictated. _//Lack of immediate pursuit, does not negate possibility of future repercussions.//_ Every micron of his frame ached, felt fissured and rattled and broken, and he wanted nothing so more than to rest, to seal off his hurts and soak in the ridiculous luxury of an oil bath--but that he could not do, not until he was sure they were safe.

Rerouting more resources to his sensory panels, he extended them slightly, tilting his head as he filtered through the comm-chatter and other overlapping, often-encrypted frequencies in the area. Surveillance signals were often very faint and hard to detect; but many had a unique signature, with a very simple datastream twisted into unintelligibility by complex encryption sets.

There was room here to spread those panels, though the largest joint of one made an alarming grinding sound as it opened. Soundwave couldn’t even be certain in which fall or fight it had been damaged; a disturbing realization. The room -- all of Maccadam’s, really -- was shielded against stray comm transmissions, and only a distant babble filtered through the balcony hatch, intensifying slightly as Laserbeak landed and hopped inside, fading again as the door irised shut. The flightframe paused to briefly nibble at Buzzsaw’s injured wing, freeing and discarding a tiny metal fragment -- some piece of another mech’s internals, evidently -- and then both flightframes set about inspecting every surface in exacting detail.

Ravage took the lead, the heavy spines of his flail spread forward to expose the big sensor lines there, his detecting spines flared over face and body. Ratbat found an inverted perch on the underside of a light fixture, and arranged watch shifts with the other symbionts, always with an optic on efficiency. The four symbionts functioned together with the ease of long familiarity, of absolute trust in the others’ abilities.

Left out of the close cohort bond and lacking the specialized sensor suites of the others, Flipsides sat on the edge of the oil bath, doing his best to keep out of the way. When his path took him close to the mechkin, Laserbeak paused in his inspections. “There are some medical supplies on the tray,” he said quietly, “they appear uncontaminated. Could you check?”

Flipsides nodded, scrambled up, went to retrieve the items. Standing on the tips of his pedes, he could just reach them, and he checked the seals on the bottles and tubes, noting the labels with growing appreciation. Selecting several, he approached the big carrier, waiting respectfully until Soundwave glanced down at him. “There’s some liquibond here, Sir,” he said. The stuff was finicky, difficult to apply and set properly -- but it was the fastest way to reattach severed parts, if they’d not been too long separated from a mech.

 _//All clear. The existent lines appear standard.//_ Ravage sent, finishing his examination of the holo emitter box.

Soundwave ran a few more scans, and then affirmed the symbiont’s judgement. With a chittering whoop, Buzzsaw tackled his classbrother midair, and both flightframes plunged into the oil bath in a tangle of flight plates and tails.

Even through his weariness and the insistent pain-signals from his damaged frame, Soundwave could not help but find pleasure in his cohort’s exuberant glee. Laserbeak and Buzzsaw’s enjoyment rippled through the bond as they surfaced again, languidly stretching and allowing the thick, clear oil to slick over armor-plates, to sink in and lubricate the fine joints underneath. Unable to resist temptation, Ratbat quickly followed. Soundwave did a quick check to make sure the little glideframe’s injuries were still well-sealed, then allowed them to splash and tussle as they wished. Built to accommodate a mech Soundwave’s size or larger, the bath was large enough for all the much-smaller symbionts to swim and dive freely, luxuriating in their newfound bounty.

Ravage still prowled the edges of their room, and Soundwave sent him a wordless push of encouragement over the bond as he levered himself down to sit on one of the seating platforms. This place was as safe as anyone could reasonably expect, at least for the moment, and he wanted Ravage to enjoy himself while he could.

In the meantime … he uncoiled his two damaged secondaries, regarding the ragged edges of the severed ends with a certain amount of resignation. Even if the tips could be reattached, it would take autorepair a long time to regenerate the complex weave of sensor cilia within. In the meantime, he would have to continue rerouting damage reports and pain signals, and the data-cables would be useless for their primary function.

Still, Soundwave was nothing if not pragmatic. The damage could have been far worse. Unsubspacing the severed cable ends, he looked down to where Flipsides waited uncertainly. “Your expertise, far greater in this area. Flipsides: willing to lend assistance in repairing injuries?” Soundwave’s own talons did not have the delicacy of touch or the sensitivity built in to make such tiny repairs, and while he could attempt to do the work with his primary manipulator cables instead, the pain and constant rerouting of his own sensory systems tended to make self-treatment challenging, to say the least.

“Of course!” Flipsides climbed up onto the platform, using the steprails conveniently set into one of the support legs. This, at least, he could do -- here in the quiet, in the light. Even if he wished he had better tools.... Flipside carefully picked up one of the severed cable tips, examining the damage.

It wasn’t good. The mechkin was well-aware of the importance of data cables to carriers. For most, they were a carrier’s major means of sensing his information environment, of interacting with his symbionts. Usually, carriers had only six or eight cables, and though Flipsides had seen Soundwave employ more, that made each one no less important. The one Flipsides examined now had been shot apart, the edges of three jagged and melted holes evidence of the passage of incendiary rounds.

The cable itself was a hollow, armored sheath for the more complex data transmission filaments inside. The last half-mechanometer or so of those blue-white threads now were little more than a tangle of metal ash inside the severed piece. The multitool collocation at the tip of the sheath was still intact, and that was the only blessing -- replacing that complex transformation device would have taken a true medic or other professional, or a very great deal of autorepair time.

Flipsides took his time in preparing the cable tip. First, he opened it along a lax transformation seam, removing all the dead cilia threads, preserving the few salvageable ones with great care. Then he deployed small grinding tools to even out the melted sheath edges, using his microwelder to delicately repair the few cracks. “This one first, please, Sir?” Flipside asked, kneeling as Soundwave brought the requested cable closer. He looked up. “The cilia have to go on first. I... do you have all the pain blocks engaged? Could you make sure they’re locked down?” This was delicate, finicky work, at the limits of what Flipsides’ frame was capable of performing -- a symbiont simply did not have the power output to support more than a fraction of a medic’s specialized hardware.

The mechkin waited until Soundwave nodded, and then carefully gathered the datacable into his lap, spreading out and manually untangling the limp and broken tips of the cilia as the carrier extended them. Flipsides unfolded his fingers into a pair of pincers -- the smallest and most delicate of which he was capable -- engaged the magnifying lenses on his optics, and delicately picked up one of the salvaged cilia. He treated the severed end with a minute droplet of the liquibond, then aligned the fiber carefully, and pressed the tip to one of Soundwave’s remaining tendrils. Holding the damaged cilia absolutely steady, Flipside channeled a precise electrical charge through his pincers, priming the suspended nanites to set about connecting like to like, in the proper sequence.

Soundwave did as he was bid, his frame as motionless as a statue, clamping down ruthlessly upon any stray sensory data that might trigger a reflexive flinch or jerk. The only movement he allowed himself was the offering a pair of his primary cables for assistance, once it became clear another set of manipulating digits would be of use. Flipsides’ expertise and ability at making repairs far outstripped his own, it was clear--but even the best medic could use an assistant to hold tools and supplies, and help steady torn pieces in place while they worked. The mechkin made use of those extra digits gratefully.

By the time Flipside finished reattaching the cilia he could, he’d descended into a single-minded focus, no longer aware of the splashing symbionts, his own so-recent losses, or the big carrier he treated. When the last of the salvageable tendrils fused themselves, he started on the tips of the cilia for which he had no extensions, applying a film of the bonding agent to seal the ones that were split or frayed, clipping away tips too melted for self-repair. At last, he gently laid all the cilia close, and bid Soundwave retract them -- watching all the while to be certain none of the still-fragile joins broke again. Then he started on the sheath itself, filing away the rough-melted edges, cleaning the wound, and then reattaching the severed tip with the help of Soundwave’s primaries. It was a less delicate job, perhaps -- the pieces larger, easier to work with. But tiny internal sensor and flexor components still had to line up, and no roughness on the internal surface could be permitted, lest they scrape the data fibers inside.

Flipsides finally finished the complex electrical and field manipulations used to program the nanites for different types of metals, and then gingerly released the datacable. The merge seam was ugly, but a mech’s own repair processes would cover that over in much less time than it took to break down a large weld. “You probably shouldn’t run much power to it, or turn sensation back on, for a few joor,” he said, looking up. “Ready for the other one, Sir?”

Soundwave nodded. “A moment,” he requested, and reactivated just enough limb microflexures to coil it back safely into his frame. Even that minimal amount of connection held enough echoes of fiery agony to make him flinch, mouthparts pinched tight, and he rerouted back around the limb as soon as it was safely stowed away, manually setting flags in place for regular repair status-checks and damage warnings instead. Then, turning his attention to the second damaged cable, he extended it for Flipsides’ inspection.

That cable had been severed a little further from the multitool tip, and more of the disunited cilia inside had managed to survive their joors without fuel. Flipsides set to work, just as he had with the other, his movements a little more practiced now. Finally, he finished, and let Soundwave retract the damaged cable.

Knowing a carrier’s likely priorities, the mechkin attended to the Soundwave’s primary datacables next. Those cables were more heavily armored, but they’d taken slashes and dents that painfully pinched the underlying cilia. Flipsides did what he could, though without proper machining tools, it was impossible to completely abate the damage. But with a few minor repairs, the cables might heal more quickly, and the carrier would be more comfortable, and that... at least that was something.

The ash-crusted holes in Soundwave’s heavy armor were more disturbing. Flipsides stood to take a closer look.

Coiling away the rest of his damaged datacables, Soundwave allowed himself finally to slump, just a little, and vent a sigh of relief. “Your skills, most appreciated,” he told the mechkin honestly. “Self-repairs always difficult, with suboptimal results.” Carriers were a hardy frametype; they had to be. But carrier-mecha weren’t medics--once damaged, waiting for self-repair to regenerate lost armor, or seal off lost limbs until replacements could be found or made, was a lengthy and occasionally imperfect process.

“You’ve been repairing yourself? Manually, you mean? Since the... all this time?” Flipsides asked, though he supposed it made sense. No carrier of his had needed to do so, but then, that was precisely why medical symbionts were useful. A carrier was a particularly complex frametype, with a high-output spark and an enormous variety of ultra-specialized hardware. Self repair could handle simple structures much more quickly than complex ones -- one reason why true medics were so protective of their hands -- and running the repair nanites took fuel. Which was in all too short a supply, of late. A mech could try to help the process along with metalmesh, could hammer out dents himself, perhaps even do some welding, but that was a chancy business.

Soundwave lifted one shoulder in a minimal shrug, careful not to dislodge Flipsides’ careful balance as the mechkin inspected the holes in his armor. “Medical allotments, long since expended,” he said simply. One did what one could with what they had; and most luxuries, including that of skilled medics to attend to their hurts, had long since disappeared. “Soundwave, practiced in repairing most symbiont frametypes, so long as materials can be found. Damage such as this …” he looked down at his damaged pede, the missing chunk of armor and subsurface wiring on the upper leg with a certain amount of resignation. “These repairs, beyond my ability.”

Surveying the sum total of the damage to Soundwave’s chassis, Flipsides wished he had a real medic here, now. “They’re beyond my ability, too. The spent slugs have welded themselves in.” A real medic could unfold a plasma torch and use field manipulators and bond disruptors to fragment shrapnel and get it out of anywhere, without further damage. A real medic wouldn’t have to rely on a multi-purpose gel or mesh like this -- they could manufacture specialized nanites within their own frames, and lay them down with all the proper primers and molecular assemblies, in exactly the right thickness to completely rebuild a part. Electron tunneling scanners enabled them to manipulate atom-wide channels and capillaries by field alone -- a medic could quite literally configure a component to function better than when it was new.

Flipsides wasn’t able to do any of those things. He frowned, searching over his memories, parsing beyond the clinical settings to battlefields and the crudest of trench fixes. There’d been a field medic at Valdon who, frankly, terrified Flipsides, along with warframes ten times the medic’s mass and pretty much everyone else in the encampment. Flipsides had observed him from a distance, though -- the medic’s makeshift repairs, often performed in seconds, had been both creative and uniquely effective. Flipsides looked to the little pile of supplies he’d brought up onto the seating platform. Two rolls of metalmesh, plus another two rolls still on the table. Maybe... maybe it was enough. “I... I want to try something, Sir. I only saw it being done a few times, though,” Flipsides said nervously, looking up.

“Soundwave: trusts your judgment,” he said, letting the warm reassurance reflect in his field, trying to soothe the nervous little symbiont. “Your memory, impeccable.” Soundwave let his amusement show, the corners of his mouthparts curling up in a small smile beneath the ever-present visor. “Soundwave: learned early on to defer to the experts.”

Flipsides straightened a bit under that accolade. He’d been valued for the knowledge he carried, of course, as all symbionts were--but he’d never been deferred to as an ‘expert’ before! “... all right. This should work, I think.” He scrambled downward, crouching to inspect Soundwave’s injured pede. The razor-edge of the driller’s armor had severed off the first two segments of the appendage, shearing cleanly through armor plate, wiring, coolant and energon lines, as well as the underlying struts in one swift stroke. Autorepair had already sealed off the leaking lines, and the nanomachines were doing their best to close the rest even as they busily worked to rebuild the missing portions, but large gaps remained, many well-infiltrated with rust and other debris from their trek out of Iacon’s lower levels.

Flipsides reached for a bottle of solvent, as well as some of the less-specialized meshcloth that had come with their accommodations--only to find it waiting and ready, held securely in the grip of an uninjured primary cable. He pinged a quick thanks to the silent carrier, then bent to work, carefully working to free tiny bits of metal from the still unsealed areas. For the most part, self-repair nanites could be counted on to cannibalize foreign metals, but parasitic creatures did exist on Cybertron, and many of the metals in the mine could be toxic if introduced into a mech’s protoform or dissolved into energon lines. Once the damaged area had been carefully inspected and cleaned, Flipsides called up the memory of that long-ago medic, and set to work. Covering thick pads of metal-mesh with nanogel, he packed them into the wound. It was hard not to cringe every time the carrier above him flinched, though Soundwave never made a sound. He had probably, Flipsides belatedly realized, taken his vocalizer offline to ensure he did not distract the mechkin in his efforts, since blocking all signals from such large areas was unwise.

That thought kept his touch gentle as he took scrapings from several sections of undamaged interior seams. The carrier’s autorepair immediately summoned nanites to the area, and Flipside scraped again in the same place, collecting fresh samples. Then he deposited the invisible smear of collected nanites on the gel and mesh that packed the wound. Flipsides used another roll to bind and seal the entire assemblage in place, ensuring the self-repair nanites could work undisturbed--then sat back on his pedes, slumping a little in both worry and relief once the job was done. “That’s all I can do, I think. At least without more supplies--but this technique worked well, the few times I saw it used,” he told Soundwave. “This way the nanites will be working from all sides to convert and rebuild your components, and they’ll have an ample supply of extra raw material to work with. Uhm.” Flipsides looked up, suddenly even more worried. “The sealant is oil-proof, but. You should stay off it for a while, Sir.” What if the big carrier planned on going somewhere?

“Soundwave: will forego evening constitutional,” said Soundwave dryly.

“Uhm. Ok.” Flipside eyed him for a moment, uncertain. Then he climbed back up, and started on the rest of the big carrier’s injuries. The thigh wound was jagged but not terribly deep, and the mechkin was able to patch the few cut wires, and cover them over. There wasn’t enough metal mesh to try to replace the whole section of missing armor, though -- and Flipsides doubted that he could tie such a bandage in place very well, anyway. He’d have to wait, see how the self-repair progressed.

The bullet holes came next. They’d have punched through even a warframe’s tempered plating, but they’d struck Soundwave over the chest, and the two sections of armor there were perhaps the densest grade of high-test molecular shielding produced on all of Cybertron. The Prime himself probably wore better, but... not by much. The rail-feed uranium incendiary rounds hadn’t even penetrated half the armor’s thickness, and impact burns marked where the armor had simply deflected other shots. The mechkin could only hope that Soundwave’s own self-repair mechanisms would dissolve the slugs on their own. As he’d done with Soundwave’s pede, Flipsides packed the holes with metal mesh, gel, and the carrier’s own repair nanites -- and then realized he couldn’t really wrap the bandage in place. Soundwave’s chest was simply too broad.

Frowning in concentration over the dilemma, Flipsides almost didn’t notice as a primary manipulator reached out, opened and picked up a large jar, then brought it close. But once he read the label, Flipsides brightened. Of course!

Thoroughly pleased with the solution, Flipsides dipped a little of the glossy wax from the container, and coated the mesh-packed wound with it, sealing it against the elements. A few more small spot-welds on other places of Soundwave’s armor, and Flipsides finally sat back, satisfied.

He’d done everything he could, unless the carrier discovered other damage or they found more supplies. Flipsides glanced around, surprised at his chronometer reading. They’d been at this longer than he thought. Both flightframes and the glideframe were piled together at the edge of the oil bath, in a mess of slick-coated limbs and tails and wings and necks, all thoroughly exhausted by their sport. Ravage had slipped into the oil, swimming a slow circle with supple serpentine undulations, optics a gleam just at the level of the liquid.

 _//The mechkin is competent,//_ Ravage pointed out quietly over the bond, while Flipsides started cleaning up the scraps and empty tubes his efforts had left scattered over the platform.

 _//Affirmative. Diligent, as well.//_ Once given direction, the little mechkin had not hesitated to do what needed to be done, even for a carrier not his own and a function he had never been framed for.

“Flipsides.” The mechkin looked up, stopping short in the midst of throwing the trash into the cycler. Soundwave did his best to gentle his tone, though given the … unique qualities of his voice, it was a difficult task. He extended a hand downward, shifting his field to reflect his concern. “Your care of your cohort, myself, noticed and appreciated. Query: will Flipsides allow the same? Your own injuries, still untreated.” Flipsides had been nowhere nearly as badly damaged as Pyrite, but he was still battered and scuffed rather thoroughly; and some of those dents might well be concealing deeper, less visible damage.

“Oh! Uh.” Flipsides said, twisting as well as he was able to take a look at his plating. He understood that Soundwave would aid him in finding another carrier -- though where they would look for one, the mechkin wasn’t sure -- but didn’t know how far that offer of assistance extended. To repairs... and energon? Supplies? Parts? Would Soundwave dock a symbiont that wasn’t his, when it became necessary? Soundwave had said that courtship was, perhaps, a possibility... if the carrier didn’t come to his senses and decide against keeping five -- Flipsides wasn’t sure how he even kept four maintained, in these hard times; certainly Amplitude had found it difficult. Soundwave had said it depended on whether the mechkin was compatible. If he had to fight again, like the rest of them had so effectively … Flipsides didn’t think he wanted that.

No, it was best not to assume too much.

Still, the carrier’s field was a warm comfort, and there were things a carrier could do to make repairs without expending many resources. “...Alright, Sir,” he said, and approached. He started a little as Soundwave set a primary cable, tip down, before him. Flipside’s first carrier had often offered such conveniences so that Flipsides did not have to climb the furniture, but for Soundwave to do so....

Nervously watching the carrier to make certain he did not misunderstand the gesture, Flipsides carefully stepped up, onto one of the heavy multitool blades clustered at the tip, and pressed a hand to the cable shaft to steady himself. Soundwave lifted the cable smoothly, letting the symbiont step off onto the carrier’s heavy thigh plates. A hand as big as Flipsides’ whole torso, talons lightly curved, was there to keep him from stumbling. This close, Soundwave’s field was tempered and even, deeply calm, warm enough to send a shiver through Flipsides’ circuits.

Soundwave kept his touch light and careful, even as he inspected the small plates of the mechkin’s surface armor, skimming talon-tips and sensors over ragged claw marks and unhealed dents. There was no bond between them, which meant he couldn’t sense any sudden spikes of pain or discomfort. He also was careful not to presume more intimacy than Flipsides was willing to allow; the mechkin might have severed his ties to his former carrier, but that did not mean Soundwave could assume that same authority unasked.

For the most part, Flipsides’ injuries appeared to be minor, he noted with relief. The few gouges that had penetrated the symbiont’s outer armor had already been sealed over by self-repair nanites, and much of the rest of the damage appeared to be mostly cosmetic in nature. Still--he frowned as he traced talon-tips down the overlapping plates along the mechkin’s backstruts. A blow had dented one inwards, and it had caught, binding up against another. Bringing a secondary cable to assist with the fine work, he gently urged Flipsides to lean to one side; then quickly popped the offending plate outward, dislodging a few sharp-edged bits of debris as he did so, and tweaked it back into proper position over the mechkin’s thorax armor.

A startled, half-stifled squeak escaped Flipsides’ vocalizer as the plate was realigned, and Soundwave froze. “Flipsides: in pain?”

Half draped over Soundwave’s hand, the mechkin shook his head. “Oh, I... no. Thank you. I didn’t even realize that was dented.” The debris had been under the bent plate so long, they’d almost started to feel normal to him -- an ache to be tolerated and ignored. He worked it back and forth a few times, stretching the armor-adjusting flexures gratefully, flaring and folding the plates along his back.

Soundwave was wonderfully thorough, checking each plate, touch gentle. Amplitude had preferred to let his autonomic repair processes handle such injuries on his symbionts -- being docked for a while would also fix such misalignments, but being manually attended was far more relaxing. Coupled with the warm, calming lap of the carrier’s field, Flipsides felt himself easing towards recharge. Soundwave’s electromagnetic field was broader than his first carrier’s, deeper, but... similar in some respects. The little mechkin cycled a quiet vent, then shivered a little as Soundwave’s talons ghosted over several deep scrapes along the length of his leg. The armor there had not been pierced through, but even still, the gouges ached.

Soundwave hesitated over the spot, then folded his palm over the damage. The surface wounds were nothing he could help with, even had they more supplies at their disposal, but the flickers of remembered fear were easy to see in the mechkin’s aura. He blocked the carrier protocols that made him want to bristle, to look for the cause of that fear and eliminate it. Anger would not help Flipsides now.

Instead, he tweaked slightly the balance of energon and coolant lines in his hands, allowing the armored surfaces to warm to slightly higher than normal operating temperatures. Not enough to cause discomfort, but enough that the warmth could radiate comfortingly through a symbiont’s much-thinner armor. As the mechkin relaxed again by slow degrees, Soundwave looked down at him, stroking talon-tips over the red and white plating.

“Flipsides, Soundwave: both dented, but still intact. Recommended course of treatment, long soak in the oil bath.” He tilted his head inquiringly. “Flipsides: willing to join us?” Ravage was still in the pool, lounging now, with his head propped over one side and optics half-shuttered, watching them. Otherwise the pool was empty, and the warm heat of the opaque oil that rippled against the basin walls was a potent and inviting call.

The little mechkin took a moment to rouse, reluctant to move away from the carrier’s heat. “Mmn. Oh! Uhm, yes, that sounds...” he started to straighten, to climb down, then squeaked softly in surprise as Soundwave stood instead, hands cupped to cradle him. Most symbionts liked to be carried -- especially mechkin, who lacked the sheer speed and jumping ability of most other symbionts. Guiltily, Flipsides craned his neck, watching to see that Soundwave did not further injure his pede. But, using a few primaries for support and balance, the carrier seemed to have no trouble taking the few steps to the bath.

Soundwave held the meckhin steady as he lowered himself gingerly into the oil and seated himself on the submerged step. Char and metaldust dissolved from his armor, fogging into the liquid, to be gradually filtered out by the bath’s self-cleaning mechanisms. He reclined a little, then spread his hands, providing the mechkin a choice of places to sit. Flipsides looked to Ravage, worried about possibly offending the legendary memory-keeper -- but the bladeframe seemed entirely undisturbed by the new additions to his pool.

Heartened, the mechkin slid down into oil, chirping a little as the heat pressed against his thin armor. The liquid was buoyant, but Flipsides was densely built for a symbiont -- before he sank too deep, he paddled back to Soundwave’s chest and settled himself into the big carrier’s hand. The sultry temperature of the oil was echoed by the lingering warmth of Soundwave’s touch. “This is really-- wow,” Flipsides said, feeling the slow-circulating currents sweep grit and debris from his seams. Minebreak would have loved.... the little medic shook his head, cutting off that processor thread.

Soundwave hummed a little in agreement, optics dimmed as he savored the sensation. How long had it been since …. ? The numbers quickly piled up far too high, and he killed that sub-thread of calculations before it could ruin his enjoyment. It seemed impossible to believe that he had once taken luxuries like this for granted; the ability to simply soak char and grime away, to let oil sink into roughened surfaces and ease worn or damaged joints. He felt some of that last lingering tension seep away, soothed by full tanks, the sight of his cohort safe and happy, the warm lapping ripples of the oil against his armor. Later, he would plan and think; for right now, he just wanted to *feel*.

Lazily, he tilted his down to look at the mechkin currently cradled against his chest. Their earlier introductions, down in the dark and everpresent fear of the mine tunnels, had hardly been lengthy; even so, Flipsides had still chosen to throw his lot in with mecha he hardly knew. That the mechkin was still apprehensive was hardly surprising.

“Soundwave: was an Archivist, ranking historian at the Academe Philosophia in Iacon, once,” he said, letting his field unfurl with warmth as he remembered earlier, happier times. “Originally created by Recast, on Xyr, many vorn ago.” No need to give a precise number, not for this--past a certain point, age became irrelevant to carriers, who did not establish their rank based on their own age and experience so much as that of their symbionts. Thinking of Recast, his expression softened with affection. “Recast, once stated Soundwave was one of his most challenging creations.”

Flipsides listened, his expression a bit uncertain, as if he wasn’t sure why Soundwave was telling him this. Soundwave nodded over to where Ravage still lay, half-submerged and pretending not to listen. “Ravage: was and is my First. Cohort, originally much larger--eight mecha, almost a full bonded complement, upon ascension to Archivist. But …” The words locked up in his vocalizer, and not for the first time, Soundwave regretted his lack of facility with them.

Ravage’s crimson gaze slitted open. “They left, when the lean times came. They didn’t want to, but Soundwave was running himself to fumes trying to support us all. So some of us--Raindance, Sundor, Erasure, and Patchjob--chose to leave, to go to other carriers, so that the rest of us would survive.” It was only what needed to be done; but carriers--even Soundwave--tended to be irrational about these things.

Flipsides put a hand over his mouth, trying to hold the squeak back inside his vocalizer. Ravage was Soundwave’s First? As a mere mechling? They stated it so simply, like it was just a bare fact, and not an event so rare as to be practically unheard of. Did it happen in war? Some desperate necessity? An accident? It didn’t seem to be something they thought needed discussing, though, so Flipsides filed it away to think about later, in favor of patting the carrier’s big chest gently in sympathy.

The mechkin let his sadness filter through his field. “I know some of what happened, then. We were just the two of us, with Waveguide, at the end of the war. Entanglement joined us from a big cohort like that. Though, uhm. Not eight. I’m really sorry.” Eight was a huge complement, and Flipsides let himself smile a little, thinking on what it would be like to have the chatter of seven other symbiont brothers running through his comms all the time. A symbiont would never really be alone, in a cohort of eight like that. And Soundwave would have lost all four at *once* -- or within a few vorns. The very idea of it made his spark ache. The loss of a symbiont, to death or to transfer, was not an easy event for a carrier to weather. The pain could linger, and it was nothing even a medic could fix.

“Did you say, uh. ‘Almost’ a full-bonded complement?” Flipsides asked, certain he’d not heard correctly.

“Affirmative. Soundwave: framed for ten.”

The mechkin gaped. He looked to Ravage, who nodded in confirmation, amused. “Really?” he gasped, looking up.

Soundwave arched a brow ridge. “Affirmative. Soundwave: counted recently.”

“Oh. Uhm.” Flipsides said. Right. Of course. He hadn’t realized that Soundwave was an archivist, either, though it made sense. Heralds like Amplitude were much more common a carrier subtype - perhaps that was why Soundwave ‘felt’ to the mechkin so much like his first carrier. Kind of strange that a historian should do so much fighting.

“Well, since we’re doing introductions, I’m Flipsides,” he said, looking up. Strangest circumstances for an introduction he’d ever had, for sure. “Medical teaching and history of the Parhelion war, line-sparked one thousand, eight hundred, eleven vorns ago. Bonded to Waveguide of the Urayan Sciences and Repair Academy, until recently.” Uraya was a small city-state bordering the rust sea -- not of any great political or strategic importance, but it had once hosted a very good clinical teaching hospital. Before the AIs had taken over the training of medics.

Soundwave nodded, acknowledging the introduction. “Flipsides, welcome. Your foci, most intriguing. Query: familiar with the Lord Megatron’s Great Incursion through the Planarii Nebula?”

Ravage made a chuffing noise, his field rippling with fond exasperation. _//If you say yes, be prepared to talk about nothing else for the next orn ...//_ Leaving off his pretense of napping, he heaved himself out of the pool, padding over to sprawl upon the tiles near his carrier, letting the excess oil drain off his plating.

“Soundwave: interested, not obsessive,” the larger mech retorted. “Half an orn, at most.”

Flipsides watched the exchange with wide optics, not sure which surprised him more -- the carrier’s easy willingness to tolerate his symbiont’s byplay, or Ravage’s evident affection. Or even Soundwave’s interest in the Planarii Nebula. Which was totally worth discussing! “Wasn’t that amazing, though, Sir? Out near IK 301, right? The idea of using the Nemesis’ grav units to gather up dust and plasma and drag it along behind... a full scale orbital bombardment would have taken vorn, and never been as effective.” Flipsides splashed his hands in the oil, in apparent illustration of the whole process. “And without all those scientists on board, they might never have noticed which black body radiation particles were actually penetrating those shielded underground bunkers. Such foresight!”

Soundwave nodded. “Military commanders willing to listen to civilian advisors, rare,” he commented. “Lord Protector Megatron, has unique ability to apply unconventional solutions to battlefield strategy. After-action analysis of his engagements, always fascinating.” A thought occurred to him. “Query: Flipsides has met the Lord Protector in person?”

It was something he had never been able to learn, for all his study; what their current Lord Protector was like, past the battlefield glories, past the rituals and respect. The current Prime and Lord Protector had ascended to their rank only shortly before the outbreak of the Parhelion war, and the Lord Protector had spent most of his lifetime in the front lines as a result, fighting to push the Tr!klcctch away from Cybertronian space. Relatively few symbionts had either the inclination or been given the opportunity to join that vanguard, and fewer still had ever been given access to the Lord-Protector himself; an oversight, Soundwave thought, that might yet have very real consequences.

Flipsides squeaked in shock. “No, Sir. Never. I mean, I’ve seen him a couple of times, when we went with the medical crews. But meeting him... that would be quite the experience, wouldn’t it, though? I know that Pyrite did, before we joined them, but we weren’t together long enough to share that.” And the serpentframe had been... reluctant to do so. It must have been a very valuable, unique memory, Flipsides supposed.

Flipsides reclined back against Soundwave’s chest, half-submerged, supported by the side of the carrier’s hand. Ravage’s optics had slid shut, he seemed content to just rest, though his audials were pricked forward. The symbiont was strikingly large even for a bladeframe, the mechkin realized; he’d known that but hadn’t understood just how much. Flipsides was a bit more than a full mechanometer tall; Ravage was over twice that, from sensory whiskers to tail tip, and his back crested Flipsides’ chest. Every gear of him was exquisitely, sharply crafted. Even in repose, he made a mechkin’s own frame look simple in comparison, which was probably no less than the truth. It was hard to believe that he was looking -- actually looking -- at one of the sources of the First Memory, the memory that all symbionts received as soon as they could transfer files.

“You were a ranking historian at the Academe Philosophia?” Flipsides asked, impressed. The Iacon universities were the best on the planet, and the five ranking historians arguably the finest mechs in their field. It was no light honor, and no small duty. “What... what was that like?” Flipsides asked aware of the inadequacy of the question. He could feel the subtle aura of the carrier’s spark, spinning slowly under his helm. It seemed peculiarly bright, though perhaps the satisfaction of the moment was just making the mechkin more sensitive.

Soundwave considered the question. How did one encapsulate the achievement of one’s lifetime into a few words? “Archivist position … humbling,” he admitted. One never quite realized just how much more there was to learn until one reached those rarified heights, only to be confronted by exactly how much one still didn’t know.

“Exhilarating, frustrating … demands on time, many; data-loads entrusted to Archivists for analysis, categorization and cross-referencing, massive and complex.” Soundwave did his best to keep the regret from creeping into his field. He had fallen so far from what he had once been … “Soundwave: enjoyed every moment of it,” he admitted. “Considerations of rank, secondary; access to data and the time allowed for research, to learn, unparallelled before or since.” Almost nothing had been beyond his grasp as Archivist; the most sensitive data had been at his cable-tips, other mecha, the greatest minds of the empire, almost always available for consultation.

A particular memory surfaced, pulled out of archives by his search-string, and Soundwave let humor suffuse his field. “Academe, also location of Buzzsaw’s introduction to Soundwave, cohort.”

Ravage snorted again. _//Not sure being chased by a crowd of angry mecha counts as an introduction,//_ he sent, making sure the band was wide enough for all to hear.

“Really? What happened?” Flipsides asked, interested.

Ravage and Soundwave exchanged looks.

From the jumbled mound of tired flyers came an irate click. _//You show this story every time, Ravage!//_ Buzzsaw protested, trying to cram his head a little further under Laserbeak’s body, as if that would block out the comms. Ratbat, jostled, squeaked and kicked at the flightframe with stubby, oil-slick little pedes.

 _//Peace,//_ Soundwave ordered, before the whole pile could devolve into squabbling. Carefully, routing power around the damaged ones, he unlimbered a half-dozen datacables, the serpentine appendages slipping through the oil and across the tile. Three of the tips presented themselves to the pile of flyers, who managed to squirm enough to lazily bare ports. Each of the three tips blossomed with cilia, socketed into place carefully, slowly. Flipsides watched, his optics a little wide. He’d felt that connection often enough -- the sudden and utter sense of dominion, of being taken, frame and spark -- but not frequently watched it. It was always amazing to see how many cilia fit within the small socket, how deep into a symbiont they truly threaded.

Ravage took another two cables. And the final one... presented itself to Flipsides, cilia demurely retracted. _//Query: Flipside will join us in recharge?//_ Soundwave asked.

It was an alluring offer. Most mecha did not dream in the way of Primes, but Chroniclers could come close -- one member of the cohort stayed functioning and offered up a vivid memory file, while the remainder sank deep into recharge, borne up on the wings of the experience. A lone pair of symbionts could do much the same, though the memory was a thousand times better over the wider, deeper lines a carrier provided. But when hardlined by a carrier, Flipsides would have no protections against intrusions, save the firewalls Amplitude had left. And those were already thinning.

The little mechkin cycled a vent. And then nodded.

The big socket across his chest was not Flipsides’ to offer. But he drew himself a little further out of the oil, and slid back the cover on a secondary port, over his hip. He watched the tip of the cable nudge him there, warm metal just brushing Flipsides’ somewhat battered protoform. The bladed multitools unfolded, feeling out the little locking mechanisms around the port, a tickling sensation. And then the first of the cilia touched him, a cool electric tingle that flowed deeper as they began to slip inside, a few at a time.

It was a strange sensation, in this rarely-used port -- raising little shivers as the fine tips explored his internal architecture, finding the right places to make connections. The mechkin was sure this carrier had more cilia than usual, too -- the full sheaf of them packed his small port densely, a feeling just this side of discomfort, and he wasn’t even sure if Soundwave had tried extending them all. Then the multitool locks slotted into place, keeping the thick hardline steady, while inside, the fiberoptic tips continued to search out their proper places. Cycling another slow vent, Flipsides ran his hand lightly over the cable sheath, and leaned back against Soundwave’s chest.

The first datapulse brushed up against the mechkin’s firewalls. Flipside shivered, a subtle tremor that seemed to emanate from his core at that exploratory touch. It was the furthest thing from a hack; utterly polite and restrained, and yet … The skill behind that touch, the restrained power of the carrier now linked to him, was almost palpable. If he wanted, Flipsides was suddenly very sure, Soundwave could crack his firewalls open in a sparkbeat. A symbiont’s firewalls were simple things, and it was clear that this carrier had a great deal of experience with them. And here there was no bonded carrier, no cohort-siblings to defend him ….

 _//Your fear, unnecessary,//_ Soundwave sent before that first tremoring of fear could turn into true panic, layering that narrow-banded channel with patient warmth, with acceptance. _//My intention, only your pleasure, your happiness.//_ But words could deceive, and trust had to be earned … and so he opened up a hole in his own defenses, offering a recursive response-loop that, if accepted, would link Flipsides’ basal sensory-data with his own. Any pain the mechkin felt, Soundwave would also suffer … and the same would also hold true for pleasure. He offered it to Flipsides, allowing the symbiont to examine the code, keeping their connection open but resisting the urge to widen or deepen it. Without shared firewalls, hardlining between two or more mecha was a delicate, cautious dance of exploration, a negotiation between two competing sets of guardian protocols. Which was not to say it did not have its rewards; and Soundwave patiently waited, hoping to share those with Flipsides.

Flipsides hesitated, tentatively exploring that opening. Then, with an oddly determined air, he accepted Soundwave’s offered connection. Their systems twined together, and Soundwave felt his pleasure echo in the mechkin’s smaller frame, their fields flaring before phasing closer, reflecting one another. Soundwave could feel Flipsides’ vulnerability, his awareness that he lay in the talons of a much larger, stronger mech; and at the same time, a profound sense of protection, cradled against a carrier’s spark, a carrier’s broad shoulders a wall between him and an angry world. The mechkin shuddered, curling inward as if he could climb inside that warm plating, and Soundwave echoed _faith/protection/treasure_ back at him, gathering him carefully close.

With Flipsides’ assistance, the carrier built a careful tunnel through those firewalls, a stream of data checked only briefly by the guardian protocols, and then flowing on, sinking deep. Slowly, the twining presence of the carrier built within the mechkin, a latency inside his memory well. Even bottlenecked by the incompatible firewalls, that presence seemed immense, a shadowy and half-sensed expanse of data transfer relays just lightly brushing up against his memory grid. Despite himself, the Flipsides could not help but wonder what a full connection would feel like -- whether a carrier like this could receive more data, maybe even several whole and unpared memory files at once.

But Soundwave made no effort to access the little medic’s memories. Instead, a trickle of data filtered through, date stamps and locators placing it in Iacon, during the start of the Parhelion war. Trailing blunt fingers unconsciously across the carrier’s slick chest armor, Flipsides relaxed into rich color, intense sensations, feeling Soundwave’s talons cupped around him even as he sensed rough iron plating under his paws, a stirring of the atmosphere across sensory whiskers....


	2. Chapter 2

The Academe Philosophia was among the tallest of Iacon’s towers, and certainly the most extensive. Rearing up above the smaller spires, its shining walls were engraved in spiralling, fractalled glyphs, kept luminous by nanomachines that soaked in the heat of the atmosphere and radiated it outward again as light. Bathed in light and haloed by a multitude of small glowing floodlamps, under clear conditions the Tower was visible for a thousand filum in every direction.

Ravage stalked quietly beside his Master, alertly scenting the air, examining the small landing pad as they disembarked their transport mech. There should have been several mecha there to greet them; there was just one, and he seemed nervous. Wary of some slight against his young carrier, Ravage bared long, serrated teeth. Raindance’s grappling claws tightened on Soundwave’s shoulder.

The small academic shuffled nervously as the transport mech unfolded his wings and dropped off the edge of the tower, leaving him alone with the infamous new carrier and his small cohort. “Uhm. My apologies, ah, Soundwave. We intended to, that is, we seem to have a --” A crash came from the magnificently-arched, double doors behind him.

Ravage tensed, bladed armor rising, weapons warming--and the doors flew open with a shudder that shook the landing platform as a bright-yellow and black flightframe streaked out, into the open sky. Angry shouting rose from beyond the open doors, and the flightframe wheeled tightly, obviously deciding which direction to flee--then, spotting Soundwave, arrowed towards him.

Ravage snarled, and Raindance bristled, wings flaring and weapons coming online. _//Wait,//_ came Soundwave’s command, their Master fearlessly lifting his head to watch the flightframe’s approach. Ravage snarled again, sending a wordless burst of _worry/anger/possession_ through their bond, but subsided, pacing a tight circle around his carrier and favoring the academic--who was now hastily backing away--an unfriendly glare.

The flightframe knew better than to presume to land on a shoulder or arm, at least. Instead he spiralled downward, turning on a wing-tip to latch himself onto Soundwave’s backplates, using the much larger mech as a shield. Ignoring Raindance’s bristling, he craned a long neck downwards, peering around Soundwave at the mob of angry mecha currently piling out of the open doorway.

 _//Didn’t do it not my fault and I just wanted to see!//_ he sent with nervous defiance, hissing at his pursuers. _//Not my fault! It was like that when I got there!//_

Soundwave lifted an arm, looking under it at his new attachment. Then he looked at the advancing group of mecha. Confronted by a carrier’s opaque visored stare, they slowed, hesitating--then stumbled to a halt as Ravage backed his Master’s authority with a blade-toothed snarl, tail lashing and spines hackled upwards.

Small, sharp talons prickled as the symbiont scrambled around to the other side of Soundwave’s back, then returned, apparently caught in an agony of indecision. He clambered over the carrier’s panel-joints with the agility of a turbofox, hissing all the while, peeking up at the angry mecha and twisting around to gauge the airspace behind.

“This is the third time this orn, Polarization! You keep that little terror under control, or so help me Primus --” started one mech, armor a matte and patchy black -- not with nanites, Soundwave couldn’t help but note.

“Erm,” A glossy red and azure mech, a long tubular array of assay equipment mounted on one shoulder like a weapon, put his hand on the charred mech’s arm. “I say, good fellow. It seems your perspicacity may have suffered; I don’t believe that’s --”

“Do you -- do you even *know* how *hard* it is to get new transwarp darkmatter field generators, these days? I don’t let my students use it, let alone that flying hunk of scrap. His interference could have left this entire tower a smoking ruin, and you expect me to just --” The angry mech strained against his saner companion.

 _//I practically fixed it! Slagger doesn’t know what he’s doing! Walks off for a cube of highgrade, leaving *that* running?//_ The symbiont hissed, scrambling over Soundwave’s plating, his small wedge-shaped head poking up over the big carrier’s helm to glare daggers at the angry scientists.

“Designation, not Polarization,” Soundwave told the enraged scientist. There was no evidence of surprise or anger in either his monotone or his field, but Ravage could feel the subtle bristling of his Master’s temper over the bond. “Designation: Soundwave. Insults directed towards symbionts, not appreciated.” He redirected his attention to the flightframe still clinging to his backplates. “Explanation requested: nature of the altercation?”

Still bristling defensively, the flightframe seemed to belatedly realize he might have jumped from the smelter into the Pit, shrinking down a little under Soundwave’s scrutiny. _//I was watching the darkmatter field decay experiments—with authorization--//_ he added, glaring over at the slightly-crispy scientist. _//--when this fragger decides to wander off in the middle of the experiment series. Which wouldn’t have been the first time. But this time he left the field generator misaligned from the last set. The thing was already building up to overload before I ever got my claws on it! And when I try to stop the flux reaction, that fragger wanders back in, fritzes out and pushes me off, just in time for the whole thing to explode in our faceplates. Literally!//_

Soundwave arched an optical ridge. Symbionts did not lie, but they could stretch the truth -- sometimes almost out of recognition. Still, this one’s field seemed to radiate mainly indignation. The flightframe, head and tail held low under the weight of Soundwave’s silent and expectant regard, crept around the carrier’s upper arm. He navigated the vertical slabs of armor with the easy adroitness of a cliff-crawler. _//The field was almost fixed. I would have fixed it,//_ he amended, earnestly.

“Why you little --!” Now two uncharred scientists were holding their colleague back . “I’ll have your helm for this, Polarization. Third time this orn! Your flying rat didn’t fix anything! He made it *worse*!”

 _//Worse than you did? Is that even possible?//_ the flightframe said with a very rude click-popping noise, poking his head up, crimson optics gleaming.

“Oh dear me,” said the red and pale blue scientist, to rising howls of wrath.

“Buzzsaw!” Another carrier dashed past the open doors, nearly falling over his own pedes as he tried to stop and turn all in the same moment. His coloration was starkly black and white, and a small jumpframe bounded after him, all big audials, big--and multiple--optics, and long tail -- the latter fluffy with slender sensor spines. “Buzzsaw, get over here Right Now and Empiric-I-am-so-sorry-it-won’t-happen-again-and-”

Drooping, the flightframe looked down, eyeing Ravage, then Raindance. He hesitated just long enough to make his unhappiness with the order clear, then launched himself in a slow glide to his carrier, who caught at him, snatching him out of the air and bundling the squawking flightframe under one arm. He backed up slowly, step by step, under Empiric’s seething glare -- then broke and ran. The blackened scientist jerked free of the red and blue mech’s grasp and tore after him, shouting.

Silence descended. Soundwave and his cohort were left staring at a dozen researchers, many of whom immediately discovered that they were Desperately Required Elsewhere, and departed posthaste. The nervous academic -- an intern, by the markings on his shoulder -- had a hand clamped over his optics, as if doing so would make the whole situation go away. The red and pale blue researcher smiled in a friendly fashion. “I do hope you’ll pardon us our small complications in the perpetual search for knowledge, good chap. My designation is Perceptor. Welcome to the Iacon Academe; I’m certain you’ll assimilate most capably!”

 

\--

 

Ravage felt his cohort and the mechkin settle deeper into recharge, the symbionts’ small fields humming with the pleasure of receiving information, Soundwave’s far greater aura reflecting that enjoyment. Flipsides had succumbed to his exhaustion; so too had Ratbat, draped in the flightframes’ limbs. Ratbat's vents made small soft murmuring sounds as he recharged.

And Soundwave at last rested deeply. Without symbionts docked, his repair systems could attend to his own wounds first. That part of the bond was sealed off tight, but even still, Ravage could see that the carrier’s injuries were perhaps the worst Soundwave had ever suffered. The thought of how they’d been won made Ravage want to pace, fangs bared.

Instead, he kept watch, his sensor arrays tuned for anything that might signal a threat. Despite the room’s shielding, he could still detect the flow of mecha around their sanctuary, even outside Maccadam’s; the bladeframe swung an audial forward, tracing the distant vibrations of a small mech wheeling down the hallway.

As that memory trailed off, Ravage selected another for his cohort’s enjoyment, with a timestamp a just a few dozen orns later....

 

\--

 

Ravage padded down the long, curved corridor, accountably pleased. A senior researcher, attempting to corroborate a hypothesis on parallel development patterns of sapience from Allspark-created life, had been the impetus behind their invitation to the Academe. Ravage had known from the start that their invitation to the Academe had been extended only because of his own status, the researcher needing to examine certain rare memory-records in Ravage’s possession. Such requests were expected, even welcomed by chroniclers. Less welcome, however, had been the researcher’s casual disregard of Ravage’s new Master.

That disregard, however, had lasted only until the research team had discovered Soundwave’s exceptional ability at pattern-recognition and data analysis. Word had spread quickly--once again proving the maxim that gossip moves faster than light--and his Master was finding his time more and more in demand. Not just to assist in the transfer of information from his symbionts, but also for his own ability to organize and and cross-reference massive amounts of raw data for the researchers’ benefit as well.

Which was, in fact, where Soundwave was now. Ravage rumbled a little in satisfaction, oddly happy at his master’s busy schedule. He had begun to worry, just a bit, that Soundwave’s own unique talents would forever be overshadowed by his famous First. But the Academe Philosophia was one of the premier research facilities of Iacon. If things continued as they were, then the favorable attention paid to Soundwave here, would soon be noticed elsewhere, and from there ...

Distracted by his thoughts, he almost didn’t hear the sound at first. It was faint, distant--a tinny scrabbling noise. Ravage froze, sensory spines lifting. Scraplets? Here? Surely not.

Head low, he prowled soundlessly towards the noise, audial arrays pricked forward. The scraping, scratching noises grew louder. And with them, a trickle of profanity. “ … fragging, idiotic piece of rust-headed … slagging tiny *corners*!”

Down two corridors, then up and across a ledge barely wide enough for his pedes, to the top of a vent--and soon Ravage was peering upward, amused, at a yellow and black flightframe who’d apparently managed to get himself stuck in a bend of an ventilation duct. Taloned feet scrabbled uselessly at slick metal, scarring it further as the symbiont twisted, trying to free himself. But one wing had gotten bound up behind him, his tail in front, and try as he might, there was simply no leverage to push against.

Ravage shuttered his optics briefly as a sprinkling of metal dust and small debris trickled down. Buzzsaw’s cursing never paused. “...sparked off a mono-optic manifold-mouthed defunct, rust-crusted diodes for a command center -- could build a better vent with my pistons in my servos and a strut up the --”

Despite himself, Ravage was impressed. With the flightframe’s vocabulary and range, anyway. Not so much his situation. “What were you hunting, to risk such a tight space?”

Silence, then a new round of scritching and struggling, until one optic could peer balefully down at Ravage. “What’s it to you? Don’t you have anything better to do than indulge in schadenfreude?”

Ravage sat, curling his barbed tail around his forepaws. “Not really,” he said, teeth parting in something that could have been a gesture of amusement.

Buzzsaw informed the bladeframe exactly what he could go do with himself. In creative, long-winded detail.

Ravage snorted. “And to think,” he said, “we haven’t been properly introduced.”

“I know who you are,” said Buzzsaw, bitterly. Ravage waited, and the flightframe hissed his temper. “I also know you’re allowed into any lab you want -- any time, any research. Don’t try to deny it. I’ve watched you.”

The big bladeframe tilted his head a little. Interesting. Flightframes could be secretive indeed, but there were only a few who could outfox Ravage’s sensors on a regular basis. His files on Buzzsaw did not appear to indicate extraordinary concealment upgrades. “Which does not explain what you were looking for,” he prompted.

Buzzsaw cycled a vent -- a somewhat squeaky one, given how his internals were compressed. “Empiric means to repeat Shockwave’s tertiary field experiment with ore-13.” Hugely complex, dangerous, and fascinating, that particular experiment sported with dimensional wave effects and realms of physics that even a symbiont’s sensors could barely grasp at. It was little wonder that Buzzsaw would be interested.

“And you’re not allowed in,” Ravage surmised.

If looks could deactivate....

Ravage considered the flightframe. Considered the vent. Factored in the layout of the Tower, and the route the vent was likely to take down to the labs where Empiric’s team worked. “I assume you’re aware that vent narrows again three corridors over?” he pointed out. “And that there’s a large set of chemofilter scrubbers between the open areas and the physical materials labs?”

“I am *now*,” was the sour reply. Buzzsaw scrabbled once more, attempting to shift his limb-components to allow for more movement, then subsided again, vents blown wide from the exertion. He gave Ravage a fulminating glare. “And now that you’ve had your fun, I suppose you’ll go rat me out to your carrier?”

“I could,” Ravage agreed. He lifted a taloned forepaw, examining the razored points, then stood, stretching himself luxuriously. “I could also mention that you could get out of there by folding down into cassette-mode and letting yourself drop.” Lazily, Ravage padded away.

The look on Buzzsaw’s faceplates had been an interesting combination of anger, affronted dignity, and pure--if embarrassed--relief, Ravage decided. Intriguing, really. The flightframe was markedly high-ranking, was reasonably old and very knowledgeable. He was also the eldest in his present cohort, a position that could be taxing on a frameclass prone to nervous behavior. An interesting situation, overall. Ravage would have to do a little more research.

Behind him, a cursing cassette clattered to the tiles.

 

\--

 

The next memory spiraled up, to be experienced by the other four recharging symbionts in full sensory detail. Soundwave shared in it too, picking those channels that interested him, letting the rest slip away.

Only a half vorn had passed since their arrival at the Iacon Academe, and Soundwave was already having to turn down requests and offers. This duty shift had been spent with Raindance and the topographic mapping crews, studying the symbiont’s aerial photographs and scans for evidence of archaeological and mineral finds, both on Cybertron and several nearby worlds. Raindance could attain heights no flightframe could manage, and his long-distance scanner suite was extraordinarily fine. Already, his observations had resulted in two caches of technology from the era of the Quintessons and a very promising energon vein.

Soundwave’s ability to cross-reference and examine the data his symbiont provided, of course, had been integral to each of those finds. The academy’s huge supercomputer AIs might have more raw processing power, but they lacked the young carrier’s feel for data, his instinctive grasp of patterns and paradigms.

This last session, Raindance had elected to stay with the researchers just a little longer. At this hour of the duty shift, the Academe’s great halls were empty and echoing. Except, Ravage noted, for a rapid hop-pattering sound, and a muttering of curses.

Soundwave came to a halt as they rounded a corner. It was impossible to tell what color the flightframe now before them had originally been -- it looked like he’d shattered several jars of assorted color nanites all over himself. A rainbow of colors gleamed on the ground behind him -- little splashes of hues spattering every spot he’d landed or hopped.

But the nanites were far from the worst of it. Assorted oils and -- organics? -- coated the little flightframe from optics to the tip of his barbed tail. One wing was fouled with dribbling goo, the other caked with some sort of resin. The metaldust of cybertron stuck to every surface of him. The flightframe shook himself hard, splattering droplets and gobs of brightly-colored filth all over the hall. “Out of my way!” Buzzsaw demanded irritably.

Ravage exchanged a nonplussed look with his master. What on Cybertron had the flightframe gotten into that could have possibly caused all *this*?

Soundwave’s amusement rippled through their bond, but did not, Ravage noted, show in his field or on his faceplates. He looked down at the little flightframe. “Your progress, rather inefficient,” he noted. Flightframes were not made for walking, and Buzzsaw’s thoroughly gummed wings and tail made his progress even more awkward. Something Ravage was sure the flightframe was already thoroughly aware of.

Predictably, Buzzsaw bristled. “You don’t think I know that? And my progress would be a lot *more* efficient if certain someones would stop standing like smelted lumps in the middle of the corridor and let me by!” He made to walk around them, hissing irritably to himself.

Soundwave took a step to the side, clearing the way. Then he crouched, folding down on his pedes. “Your destination, reached more quickly with assistance,” he said evenly, as if he offered to play transport-mech to sludge-dripping symbionts every orn, and extended wrist and forearm, offering the perch to the startled symbiont.

 _//Are you sure?//_ Ravage sent privately to his master, keeping a careful distance. _//Whatever he’s covered in is going to get on you.//_ He flattened his plating, clamping it tight to his frame in revulsion at the thought.

 _//Plating, will wash,//_ came the unconcerned answer. Soundwave made no further overtures, merely waited as Buzzsaw eyed him suspiciously.

“Seriously?” Buzzsaw asked, looking from Ravage to Soundwave and back again. “You’d help me? Why?”

Soundwave didn’t answer, merely waited, arm out.

Buzzsaw dithered a moment more. “... all right. You want to play taxi-mech, who am I to argue?” he finally decided, and hopped forward, making the jump to the proffered perch, semi-solid lumps of unidentified goo spattering as he landed. “I need to get to the wash racks, as I’m sure you’ve figured out.”

Ravage case a baleful eye upwards, then stalked around to Soundwave’s other side, where the bulk of the carrier might shield him from any dropped or flung globules of -- whatever that was. “Something amiss with your own wash rack?” he growled, sidestepping a colorful smear.

Buzzsaw did his best to flare his plating in dire warning, which resulted mainly in a sticky, squelching sound. Primus. He sounded like an organic. Nauseating. The flightframe evidently came to the conclusion that he didn’t have to put up with this scrap, not even from a symbiont like Ravage. No doubt expecting that he’d be turned upside down and shaken -- and thereby have an excuse to get everyone as dirty as he was, Buzzsaw issued a rude popping noise. “Like you even know what a wash rack is, you rust-plated catface. Probably lick yourself all over your grease-blotched gearbox--”

Ravage coolly arched an optical ridge, running a few inquiries. _//Crest says Polarization ordered him out. Evidently, this is the second time this orn,//_ he sent, across his master’s bond. Soundwave returned an acknowledgement, then simply stood and turned his helm to regard Buzzsaw, visor and field inscrutable. The flightframe managed a few more curses, then trailed off, suddenly uncertain.

Without a word, Soundwave headed for the communal racks.

Clearly not sure what had just happened, Buzzsaw did his best to make the most of his situation. He puffed himself up pridefully as they walked past other mecha, evidently hoping it would seem that he was in this state on purpose. The communal wash racks were a big facility on a lower level, used mainly by interns and assistants who did not rate full quarters themselves. When the big hatch irised open, Buzzsaw spread his flightplates as best he was able and launched himself into a wobbly, steep glide, heading for the solvent showers. “Thanks for the ride, carrier,” Buzzsaw said flippantly, talons clattering as he landed inside one of the many cleaning units. “You can go n--” then he looked up. The unit had never been built for symbionts; the controls were manual... and three mechanometers over his head. “Frag!”

“Assistance still needed, apparently,” Soundwave said evenly, and stepped into the racks without hesitating. He and his cohort had their own private facilities, of course, but Ravage’s prediction had been accurate. One arm and no few panels of Soundwave’s chassis were now splattered with technicolored goo. His master would definitely require a wash.

Still, there was no reason to do it *here*, with a foulmouthed and ungrateful flightframe. Ravage fully expected his master to turn on the solvent nozzles, then make his departure--but instead Soundwave picked up Buzzsaw once more, prompting another indignant squawk, turned on a spray nozzle, and began spraying the smaller mech down with it.

Buzzsaw spluttered, spines bristling and wings mantling, as he got a faceful of solvent. “What’re you--awrk! I can do it myself, carrier!”

“This way, more efficient,” Soundwave said, ignoring the talons digging deep grooves into his gauntlet-armor. “Less solvent wasted, no need to ask others for additional assistance.” Having thoroughly wetted the flightframe down, he hung the nozzle back on its hook to spray over them both, then reached for a nearby bristle-scrubber. He lifted it to where Buzzsaw could see. “Buzzsaw: does not wish backplates and wings scrubbed clean?”

“Well--” From his spot at the entrance to the room, safely distant from the dirtied solvent spattering off of both mecha, Ravage could tell the flightframe was torn--did he hold on to his indignation at the manhandling, or cave in to the tempting offer of good scrub by his own personal wash-bot? Decisions, decisions .... Buzzsaw twisted his head, eyeing Soundwave sidelong. “I don’t get it. Why are you going to all this trouble? Aren’t you even going to ask how I got like this?”

Ravage was willing to bet Buzzsaw was asked that question a *lot*.

Soundwave began scrubbing sticky goo off the overlapping plates along Buzzsaw’s spine, paying careful attention to the small crevices between the sensory spines. “Soundwave: not in the habit of asking questions from those who do not wish to answer.” He moved so that the spray sluiced down the area he had just scrubbed, then started on the fouled surfaces of Buzzsaw’s wings. “Your reasons, your own. Your objective, successful?”

The bristles felt really, really good, and the carrier was careful with them -- took his time to rub away each layer of goo rather than scrubbing harshly. The temperature was just right, too, as if the big carrier had looked up a flightframe’s environmental specs. Which didn’t make much sense, because Soundwave didn’t even have any flightframes. Buzzsaw morosely regarded the rainbow of colored solvent filtering down the drain. “No,” he said, spreading his flightplates to let the brush access the narrow cracks between the individual blades.

“A pity,” Soundwave said neutrally, attending with great dedication to the flightframe’s fouled heat exchanges.

Buzzsaw relaxed a little -- it was impossible not to, really, between the brush and the warm spray and the relief of simply being clean again. Some of the color nanites had already started to fuse to his own, leaving him technicolor-speckled. “It would have been successful,” Buzzsaw maintained bitterly. “Just needed someone to keep watch. That’s all.”

Soundwave made a thoughtful humming sound. “Query: cohort siblings unsuited to task?”

Buzzsaw clicked furiously. “Those jumpframes are slagging useless. With that many optics, you’d think they’d be happy to stand watch, right? But nooo. One glimpse of anything even remotely dangerous and they run right back to Polarization, squeaking like glitchmice the whole way.”

Soundwave nodded once in understanding. “Your access, Polarization’s: insufficient for your function?” One wing was now clean, yellow and black flightplates gleaming under the solvent, and he tapped one foot with the scrubber, urging Buzzsaw to turn and present the other.

Buzzsaw opened his beak to reply--then hesitated, obviously rethinking the urge to talk slag about his carrier in front of another cohort. Ravage was glad to see evidence of at least that much foresight. Polarization might not be the most assertive or effective carrier on Cybertron, especially for this particular symbiont, but loyalty was important, even so.

“Polarization … does what he can,” Buzzsaw finally admitted, hunching a little -- though he turned obediently enough to offer up his other wing for cleaning. “But a lot of the slaggers don’t want us watching all the time--they try to say it isn’t ‘safe’.” He made a disdainful blat of noise. “They just want to show off the research that supports their inquiries, or that makes them look good for discovering something new. Recording failed lines of inquiry and other dead-end data is just as important--and I don’t mean just some note in a mech’s log somewhere that says ‘Tried this. Didn’t work.’’ either! But there are a few slaggers here who care more about how they look on the historical record than anything else.”

Soundwave regarded the hunched, resentful form on his arm thoughtfully. “This situation, unfortunate.”

“Unfortunate isn’t the word for it, carrier,” Buzzsaw said, wings drooping. He cycled a vent to run a little aspirated solvent through his internals. Such interesting things were going on all over the place, but could Buzzsaw get there? To see and record with his own optics? No. “Slaggin’ scientists creak and grind about things blowing up. But it’s not like there are any *more* explosions when I’m in a lab than when I’m not.” He straightened, fluffing the plates across his breast for more of that wonderful scrubbing. “Sometimes I can even fix things.”

Granted, the fixing would go better if the researchers ever deigned to treat him like the mech he was, instead of some variety of clever wildlife. Some of them looked at him like he was a fragile glass lilleth that had managed to creep in the window. Stay in the corner, Buzzsaw. Hide behind this shield, Buzzsaw. Don’t get near the transwarp modulator or you’ll be sucked into a parallel dimension and crushed into a tiny wad of scrap, Buzzsaw. How was he supposed to see anything that way?

Balancing himself with his wings, Buzzsaw tilted his head back for a beakful of solvent, swishing it around his intakes. “Lots of stuff ain’t even very dangerous, anyway. You ever see Parallax’s nano-organic interference tank experiments?” The flightframe twisted his head around on a supple neck to regard Ravage, who sat at a safe distance from the shower. Ravage shook his helm, and Buzzsaw fluffed himself a little more. “You should. It’s fragging amazing.”

Soundwave selected a soft-bristled brush to work on the delicate mechanisms around the flightframe’s faceplates and optics. “Query: xenobiology your major focus?”

“No--it’s interesting enough, but a lot of it is too squishy for my tastes. Nothing but weird organics and their weirder adaptive mechanisms, a lot of the time.” Buzzsaw ruffled his outer plating, as if to flick off any remnant organic contagion. Given the flightframe’s earlier condition, that possibility wasn’t nearly as improbable as one might usually assume, Ravage had to admit.

“I like the harder stuff; physical properties and laws, material sciences and manipulation. Energy states too--there’s some really interesting lines of thinking going on over in--” the flightframe continued on in that vein for some time, Soundwave listening solemnly as he worked. Ravage vented a sigh. This particular bath, it seemed, was not going to end anytime soon …

___

 

Twelve orn later, a very confused Polarization found himself heading towards the lower levels of the Academe, Soundwave at his elbow and Ravage pacing them both on the other side. The labs they were entering were just as clean as the rest of the tower, admittedly, but they also appeared to be a great deal more … battered, Ravage noticed. The doors, for instance, were heavily reinforced, banded by alloyed steel, and were those … scorch marks? Someone had obviously done their best to scrub them off, but the other carrier was obviously finding the lingering evidence of past explosions a bit disturbing. No doubt that was part of the reason, at least, why Polarization had ordered his cohort to return to the safety of their docks once he’d learned of their destination.

“It’s not that I’m not willing to help, Soundwave,” he told the other carrier, “But I’m not sure what we can do. I appreciate that this department isn’t getting their fair share of chronicler attention, and I’m sure they have amazing avenues of research they’re pursuing--” although in all honesty all the researchers they worked with said that, and Polarization seemed to have developed a healthy amount of skepticism for scientific hyperbole, “--but you and I both are up to our optics in requests already, and our teams are all solidly booked. So unless this team has managed to figure out a way to give us a few more joors in a cycle …”

“That possibility, theoretically achievable,” Soundwave replied, and Polarization gave him an appalled stare.

“Time manipulation? Seriously?”

“Perhaps. However, still hypothetical,” Soundwave allowed, and Ravage indulged in a purely internal snigger at the look on Polarization’s faceplates. “This team: brought together for exploration of wide-ranging, unique theories regarding physics and high energy applications. Current avenue of research, shifting quantum particles between dimension-states. Projected possible outcomes: improved efficiency of fusion reactions, localized warping of space-time, or the destabilization of all molecular structures within six thousand light-vorns of point zero.”

“What??”

“Last possibility, very unlikely,” Soundwave reassured him blandly.

Polarization rubbed at his optical ridges, a nervous habit. It was a wonder the nanites on his brow weren’t wearing off. “Primus, Soundwave.” He eyed Ravage, clearly wondering why the bladeframe hadn’t also been confined in the safety of his carrier. Ravage refrained from commentary with an effort of will. “Point zero would be *here.* Right in the Towers. Do you have any idea -- any idea at all what that would...“

A shudder and then a thud rumbled through the thick decking under pede, and Polarization jerked to a halt. “What was that?”

Ravage and Soundwave exchanged identical looks. The bladeframe prowled past the carriers, triggering open one of the heavy laboratory blast doors, and then darted nimbly aside as a white and gray mech, his armor adorned with splashes of green and red, came tumbling out with a crash.

“Oh. Hello,” said the mech, looking up at the two carriers and the bladeframe, from where he sprawled in the middle of the hallway. His hands were bound in front of him.

Soundwave tilted his head, then crouched beside the researcher. “Gyro-inhibitors, uniquely effective,” he said.

“Aren’t they, though?” said the mech, twisting as well as he was able to showcase the heavy, blue-glowing links wrapped around his wrists. His limbs moved like a mechanosloth’s -- very slowly, with great effort. “Been fiddling with them for couple ‘a orn now.”

Soundwave conferred a little with Ravage. “Possibility: power set high for trial purposes?”

The researcher shrugged -- slowly. “Gotta test it somehow, yanno.”

“Query: how did you overcome inertial dampener degradation?”

“Well now, that’s the beauty of it!” said the researcher, optics gleaming. “The shifting dimension-states will theoretically prevent decay in the same manner as the Thermium equation suggests....”

Polarization’s faceplates took on the uncomfortable expression of a carrier experiencing a squirming symbiont.

“...and then the third quaternary coil assemblage should take up the slack. Elegant, yet simple, see?”

Soundwave nodded with apparent gravity, ignoring the curses and protests that filtered over the narrow Chronicler bandwidth, muffled by the other carrier’s armor plating. “Query: Overhaul available?”

The white and gray researcher wriggled a little. “Weellll... now that’s kind of an interesting story.” He cycled a very slow vent. “Uhm. It seems he experienced a small -- very, very minor, you understand -- explosive decompression. Tiny, really. Hardly worth mentioning. He’s fine. Completely, absolutely fine.” He lifted his hands a little, indicating them. Soundwave tilted his helm slightly, crimson visor blank, and did nothing. The silence stretched for long seconds, until the scientist was positively squirming. Slowly. “In the medbay, but fine! Practically!” he blurted.

“Oh, Primus,” muttered Polarization.

“Overhaul’s absence, problematic,” Soundwave remarked, ignoring Polarization’s increasingly panicky vocalizations. “Overhaul: had requested a symbiont assignment to record promising experiment series by his team. Stated all previous requests had been rejected?”

“Oh?” The researcher brightened. “Oh! Yes! He’s been trying to get one of your wonderful chroniclers down here for over a vorn! But for some strange reason, we can’t ever seem to get approved for one. Which is a shame, because we’re doing some absolutely fascinating work. There’s this project, of course, though it’s really more of a side experiment. And then there’s our other work with the plasma seeding of nascent darkmatter, and of course we just began a line of inquiry into manipulating fourth dimension quantum-entangled particles and…”

That proved to be all Polarization could handle. He rounded on Soundwave, bristling, a taloned hand splayed protectively over his chassis. “You can’t be serious! This--you would risk one of your cohort, or one of mine, down *here*? Are you insane? They’d be deactivated in less than an orn! Crushed, or blown to atomic bits, or even worse!”

The researcher broke off, blinking at them both in surprise.

“Number of injuries on record for this lab, above average,” Soundwave said evenly. “Patterns of injury, thoroughly investigated. When correlated with the volatile nature of experiments being performed, and cross-referenced with similar experiments elsewhere, actual amount of damage, far less than expected.” Polarization didn’t appear overly reassured by this, for some reason. Ravage snorted, tapping his tail idly back and forth across the floor. Carriers.

“The number of reported incidents requiring medbay attendance, unusually high,” Soundwave continued. “Raw statistical pattern-spread, however, is anomalous, as the number of fatalities associated with this team is zero.”

“Maybe it’s not that bad for a full-sized, fully-armored mech,” Polarization snapped back. “But to risk a symbiont--!”

“Team’s safety record, impeccable,” Soundwave said implacably. “98.4 percent of incidents involving explosions and other damage, found in review to have been caused by the volatile nature of the work, not due to mistakes or carelessness; significantly above statistical mean. Additionally,” This time he turned, levelling an opaque visored stare at the still-watching researcher. “All previous requests for symbionts, denied. Any injury to a chronicler, ensures no further requests will be accepted. Research team has every incentive to make symbiont safety their priority. Correct?”

The researcher nodded, his enthusiasm obvious. “Oh absolutely! A chronicler’s assistance would be invaluable in our efforts, and far too precious to risk unnecessarily. After all, that’s what interns are for!”

Soundwave turned back to Polarization, and Ravage could feel the tension in his master’s field. Soundwave, it seemed, was about to show his hand.

“Conclusion: this team poses unique opportunity for symbiont with appropriate foci,” Soundwave said. He reached out to a still-bristling Polarization, carefully tapping one talon-tip on the heavy armor that protected the senior carrier’s cohort. “Such a symbiont, far more valued here than by many other researchers--including Empiric.”

Under Soundwave’s talon tip, just very faintly, glowed several muffled fields -- one of them flaring bright now with gathering hope and excitement. Polarization jerked back. “Empiric is also *safer* -- he hasn’t ever had a serious injury or--or an ‘explosive decompression’, and you have no idea what kind of symbiont you’re dealing with or what he’d do in a place like this! He was out in the big rotunda dive-bombing the technicians just last cycle!”

“Well, they do need the exercise,” said the researcher, still splayed out on the floor between the two carriers. “Tell them that all the time, myself. How you plan to dodge transwarp black holes if your gears are rusty, I always say. Uhm. Say, do you suppose you could....” he lifted his bound hands a little. Slowly.

Both carriers seemed to be ignoring the gray researcher. “And the orn before that, he set the physicists’ graduation ceremony on *fire!*” Polarization protested.

“Oh, I remember that,” said the scientist pleasantly. He reset his optics as both big mecha turned eerily blank visors on him. Uhm. “Well, it was a very small fire,” he added hastily.

 _//Was chasing a glitchmouse.//_ Buzzsaw sent quietly in his own defense, glyphs filtering through his carrier’s thick armor.

“Observation: symbionts denied their interests, find less productive activities to engage their time.” Soundwave’s tone was even, implacable.

“But -- I...” Polarization started, looking between Ravage -- a symbiont so valuable, he ought not to be down here at all -- and the unyielding young carrier.

“You know,” said the bound researcher thoughtfully, from his place on the ground, “I don’t feel we’ve been properly introduced. I’m Wheeljack.”

Polarization looked back and forth between the two of them, with the expression of a mech having to choose between the Pit and the Unmaker. “I don’t think …”

 _//I’m Buzzsaw!//_ The glyphs were a great deal clearer this time; the flightframe obviously making an effort to ‘shout’ through his carrier’s armor. _//And I think you need to re-evaluate your usage of the Thermium equation, because you’re going about it all aft-backwards, but I wanna be there when you do it right!//_

Soundwave knelt at Wheeljack’s side, and after a few kliks of puzzling over the device--and a bit of judicious help from said researcher--found the deactivation code inputs. The cuffs snapped off, and Wheeljack caught them as they fell, scrambling to his pedes. “Many thanks! And it’s a pleasure to meet you, er--” he trailed off, obviously not sure of the proper protocol when addressing another mech’s breastplates.

Still kneeling, Soundwave looked up at the other carrier, waiting. Ravage padded to his master’s side and sat in a show of solidarity, adding his own expectant stare.

“I don’t--” Polarization’s faceplates pinched in unhappy discomfort, and Ravage was willing to bet Buzzsaw was being rather vehement in his attempts to leave his dock. Polarization vented a sigh, and dropped his hand. As the armored plates over his chassis began to open, he gave them all an impartial glare. “Fine. We will try this. But I will be present to prevent any additional ‘accidents’.”

“Wonderful!” Wheeljack said, beaming. “Overhaul will be very pleased to hear that, once his helm is re-attached!”

“What?!” But it was too late, the cassette had already slipped out, unfolding himself through his transformation sequence the instant he cleared his carrier’s chest. Chittering his delight, Buzzsaw wheeled up and out of the reach of his carrier in a cambering arabesque of joy -- and then darted straight through the still-open hatch of the laboratory to land on a cluttered workbench. _//This is gonna be so great! You have an antimatter inertia generator! And a neutral current amplimeter! And let me see which datasets you used for that Thermium equation because I always thought that Shockwave’s were....//_

“They’re superior, of course!” said Wheeljack, abandoning both carriers without so much as a glance. “Imagine that, thinking that anyone in this lab uses Mainframe’s sets -- except for antimatter, of course. And positrons. Well, and sometimes for....”

 _//Well, of course for antimatter, and also sometimes for --//_ “Naturally! But what about the decay equilibrium?” _//No, but I saw that solved by...//_ the two mecha chattered on, all but oblivious to anyone else.

Polarization cast Soundwave a helpless look, and trailed along after the two excited mecha. But before the laboratory door hatch closed, Ravage noticed the flightframe twist his head around to watch Soundwave -- a long and considering regard. _//I think you found a good one,//_ said Buzzsaw unexpectedly, over a narrow band.

Ravage parted his teeth in a gesture of amusement. _//Agreed.//_ He turned away, then paused, glancing back as if a thought had just occurred to him.

 _//Oh, and Buzzsaw? He’s framed for more than just the two of us,//_ Ravage added. He savored for just a moment Buzzsaw’s shocked expression, his startled realization at just what the bladeframe was obliquely suggesting. Then he turned, and padded away at his Master’s side.

Soundwave, Ravage knew, liked flightframes.


	3. Chapter 3

A subtle mental nudge -- effortless, over Soundwave's hardline -- served to wake Buzzsaw. The flightframe stretched his beak in a joint-creaking yawn, coming up out of the memory. Then he lifted his head, optics spiralling wide as they adjusted for the dimmed lighting. _//Any activity?//_ he asked.

 _//None,//_ Ravage supplied, providing the scanner patterns he'd detected over the past handful of joors, sending observations of what sounds and events were normal in this area.

Buzzsaw nodded, extending the range of his own scanners to overlap Ravage's, calibrating and double-checking. Out of habit, he checked his carrier's physical readings as well. _//The mechkin's been useful,//_ he sent, looking over the little form curled atop his carrier's chest. Soundwave's recharge was deep and even, his wounds improving well, his talons cupped protectively. _//Do you think we’ll be able to find another carrier? One with space and resources enough? One unlikely to get into more trouble?//_

Ravage shrugged a little, careful not to disturb the datacables. _//Perhaps. A mechkin doesn't take much. That last requirement will be most problematic.//_

Buzzsaw nodded again, angular head held alert, though he declined to move from the jumbled pile of flyers. All of them had been forced to adapt, to change -- and he knew better than to assume that need would soon cease. _//But perhaps, if we do not ask too much, too soon, then for now....//_

 _//Hn,//_ Ravage agreed, laying his head down.

Buzzsaw thought about that for a while, sorting through his own threads of memory. He considered offering up his memories of the time that Polarization took a far safer position outside the Academe, the moment that Buzzsaw sought out Soundwave... and joined his destiny and his spark to a new carrier. Then Ratbat, still in recharge, snuffled and booted him again -- right in the solenoids! -- with slippery little pedes. Buzzsaw’s optics narrowed. No, he had a better idea....

\---

Buzzsaw crowded up onto Soundwave’s shoulder, nudging Raindance over, his Master’s plated armor thick and solid under his talons. _//So what, we roll around here for a couple joor, kiss some hands and shake some sparklings, get into the highgrade, then we’re free?//_

The seekerframe pinged a protest at the jostling, and Buzzsaw promptly snaked his head in close, to nibble at the tender joints of engine housing and landing gear. It wasn’t quite like grooming another flightframe -- there were far fewer joins and gears -- but the attention was, if anything, even more appreciated. A seekerframe sacrificed flexibility for speed, and accordingly relied on his carrier or other symbionts for his maintenance .

Raindance’s squeaky protest faded into a pleased murmur. _//Doesn’t sound so bad to me,//_ he said, flicking miniature ailerons in approval at Buzzsaw’s attentions. _//Lots of company, lots of mecha to meet and stories to swap--if we’re lucky, we might even have the chance to trade a few memory files.//_

 _//Affirmative,//_ Soundwave agreed, surveying the crowd. The event--nominally a simple gathering for friends and allies, though all concerned knew the real reasons behind it--was in full swing, with a vivid assortment of frametypes circulating in slow patterns through the alien rock garden and the workshop beyond. Comm-chatter and vocalizations hung thickly in the air, a competing tangle of overlapping signals and coded transmissions, and Buzzsaw knew his Master was tamping down on the deeply-coded instinct to decode the compressed data, to decipher and organize all the conversations around him. Instead Soundwave stepped forward, giving another carrier a dignified nod of acknowledgment. _//Creator Quasar: artisan-ranked and highly respected. His invitation, an honor. Opportunities for connection and advancement at this event, many.//_ The mecha around them were an eclectic mix, from many different function-classes and designs, although the majority of the guests appeared to be chroniclers, both carrier and symbiont. Which was only to be expected, Buzzsaw supposed. _//Your best behavior, expected,//_ Soundwave reminded them.

 _//Yeah, yeah,//_ Buzzsaw replied, twisting his long neck to rub the edge of his beak against one audial. _//Don’t worry, Boss--we won’t embarrass you. No rude jokes, no falling into the energon.... //_

 _//No setting it on fire,//_ Ravage said pointedly.

 _//No setting it on fire … sheesh! You ignite one teeny, weeny little cube and no one ever lets you forget it ...//_ Buzzsaw mantled his wings a little in mock indignation. _//Besides, everyone loved that recipe. The barmech said he was gonna call it Buzzsaw’s Flaming Tailfeathers!//_

 _//What are you, an organic?//_ Raindance snipped. _//Flightframes don’t have feathers.//_

_//Pft. Who cares? Don’t let details get in the way of great art, my creator always used to say.//_

_//Which explains SO much, really it does ...//_

Ignoring the banter going on around his audials with the ease of long practice, Soundwave moved into the garden, sending out a polite location-ID ping towards his host. A reply came back immediately, and he made his way towards the indicated direction, to where Quasar had seated himself next to an artfully placed alien boulder, glossy black and gleaming, that was at least two mechanometers taller than the largest mecha there.

Importing that much stone, all in one piece, would have cost energon enough to fuel a mech for vorns. A creator like Quasar probably never even noticed the expense. Among the most talented of his class, Quasar was known for his ability to spin a spark of immense complexity, to encourage a sparkling into just as unique a form. While no creator-mech was ever publicly accredited with work on a Prime/Protector dyad, many of the current artisan-level creators had been tasked to frame the latest, and it was widely assumed that Quasar had been one of them.

Aside from that, Quasar was best recognized for his work on no less than eleven cityformers, but had begun of late to explore smaller, more elegant frametypes. One of his still-unfinished sparklings, slender and lithe and hauntingly beautiful in a courtesan’s frame, picked his way through the crystal garden behind Quasar, evidently looking for something.

Quasar had only ever made one attempt at a symbiont. Buzzsaw rather doubted he’d try another.

“Ah, Soundwave. Welcome; I am so pleased that you were able to make the trip. I trust Recast is well?” Quasar was a somewhat small mech; his sculpted helm would come about to the center of Soundwave’s chest. His optics rested on Ravage a moment too long. Most mecha involved in the affairs of chroniclers behaved similarly, and Buzzsaw had mostly ceased taking offense. He’d have time to do little else, otherwise.

“Recast: is well, sends his greetings,” Soundwave said.

Quasar frowned a little, tilting his helm. “Hm. I do owe him a favor for this. If you should ever wish me to take a look at your vocalizer, I would be pleased to.”

Buzzsaw flared his plating in irritation. He knew Soundwave was young to have garnered so much infamy -- but he certainly wasn’t a sparkling, and was past the age when a mech’s frame was typically modified much. The flightframe was not sure at all what to make of that bald assertion that Soundwave’s presence constituted a favor. In many respects, it was -- one not without cost to the big carrier. If Soundwave attended an event, other chroniclers would as well... for the opportunity to gauge Ravage’s loyalty for themselves, typically.

But Quasar needed as many chroniclers here as possible; hence, the invitation. Buzzsaw spotted the reason for that, fluttering furiously from one pillar to the next in the garden behind the creator-mech.

“Your offer, very generous,” Soundwave replied politely, ignoring the bristling flightframe on his shoulder. “Your consideration, also appreciated.” Which was as polite a non-answer as Soundwave could give without saying ‘no’ outright and offending their host. As unique as his speech patterns were, Soundwave never had a problem getting his point across; personally, Buzzsaw liked his Master’s speech just fine the way it was. You never had to wonder where you stood with Soundwave.

His Master exchanged a few more polite words with their host, inquiries into his current work, Soundwave’s own current assignments. Buzzsaw noted it all idly without paying much attention; social niceties were boring even at the best of times, and these were certainly no exception. After a few kliks, Soundwave noted the other mecha subtly angling for Quasar’s attention. “Your attentions, much in demand,” he noted, layering a subtle note of humor into his field. “Soundwave: should make an introduction to your creation. With your permission?”

Quasar, his attention obviously already wandering to other matters, gave him a nod. “Of course. He should be nearby, although--” a flicker of chagrin rippled through his field, “--he does occasionally ignore location-pings. You may have to do a bit of searching.” Quasar was too experienced a creator to let his frustration show, especially in front of so many prospective carriers, but a certain amount of exasperation escaped regardless.

Soundwave nodded in understanding. “Understood.” With that, he turned away, allowing an Praxian engineer and a broad, massively-built orange and black construction-mech to step in, more than eager to compete for the artisan-creator’s attention.

 _//He’s back over behind the sandstone arches, Boss,//_ Buzzsaw sent over a private line. _//Not that Quasar’s little precious is gonna give the likes of us any attention.//_ Soundwave was still too new to have made a name for himself, and their cohort was middling-rank at best, Ravage aside.

 _//Serious consideration, unlikely,//_ Soundwave agreed, wandering in the indicated direction with no particular urgency. _//Yet introductions, still expected. Ignoring Quasar’s creation, unwise and likely to offend our host.//_ He paused by a reflecting pool, the silvered mercury rippling with the vibrations of his pedes. _//Presence of cohort, not required,//_ he told them all. _//All: are free to explore as you see fit.//_ It was a potent measure of Soundwave’s trust, Buzzsaw knew, that he did not insist upon keeping Ravage close, especially with so many other highly-ranked carriers present.

Buzzsaw fluffed himself, well-pleased. He knew where the highgrade was being poured out -- exceedingly fine stuff, gleaming gold-white. _//Hey Raindance, let’s go--//_

Ravage cast both flyers a sidelong look. _//Buzzsaw. With me.//_

 _//Awww!//_ Buzzsaw started to protest, wilting. He heaved a theatrical vent, apparently the most sorrowful symbiont on all of Cybertron.

Ravage arched an optical ridge, turned to pad away. _//You may ride.//_

 _//Yes!//_ Thoroughly mollified, Buzzsaw pressed his head and the length of his sinuous neck against Soundwave’s audial fin. Then he launched himself off his carrier’s shoulder plating, gliding down to perch on the bladeframe’s sharp-ridged back, where he arched and preened himself proudly.

 _//Explains everything, really,//_ Raindance mused, taking off as well. He circled a few moments on antigrav-studs, then fired up his engines to streak skyward, joining the swirling dance of other seekerframe symbionts overhead.

The thread of memory fractured at this point, splitting down the center, becoming more complex. The linked symbionts and their carrier, however, were accustomed to dense sensory input. Simultaneously, they experienced and enjoyed the memories of Buzzsaw’s sport with several other flightframes and adventures with the highgrade -- and also the thinner thread of Soundwave’s recollections. Shared with Buzzsaw and writ indelibly on the symbiont’s spark, the big carrier’s memory had become part of the vast Chronicler network of history, to be shared and passed down through the ages.

Soundwave paused, watched his cohort depart on their own affairs. Even without their physical presence, he was never truly alone, their conversations and flickers of emotion flowing freely over the cohort bond. That constant murmur of communication, of contact, was reassurance and comfort both, a primal answer to the carrier protocols that constantly monitored his symbionts’ safety and proximity.

Other carriers, with or without their cohorts, filtered into and out of the garden, a few at a time. Their objective was clear -- and clearly being thwarted by the evasive disinterest of Quasar’s little symbiont. Apparently it was rather difficult to court a symbiont more concerned with his own indeterminable projects than conversation. A rapid flutter, and the little glideframe was rudely and suddenly gone, vanishing among the standing stones and leaving a prospective carrier standing agape. With a vent, the mechling courtesan glided out of the shadows and went to look for his brother once again.

“Ready for your obligatory insulting?” Pitch asked, quietly joining Soundwave. The other carrier was starkly black and silver, elegant as a blade in every line. He nodded towards where the rejected chronicler was headed back towards the event--most likely to drown his disappointment in the highgrade. “The little terror is *this* close to going through every carrier in Iacon -- and half of the ones on Cybertron. Apparently, he informed Reverberation that he was so tedious, he made estimating the number of grains of silicon in these stones look interesting.” Pitch snorted softly. The symbiont had good taste, at least, even if he likely had made an enemy of the highest-ranked chronicler in Iacon. “Anyway, don’t take it personally when it’s your turn. How’s your cohort?” Pitch lifted a hand to stroke two fingers along the helm of his small serpentframe symbiont, who coiled tighter around a ridge of his carrier’s shoulder armor, and watched Soundwave with glittering optics.

“Adventurous,” Soundwave said dryly, the word overlaid with equal parts affection and exasperation.

Pitch chuckled, his armor vibrating, adding its own singing note to his amusement. “So I hear. Did Buzzsaw really blow up an entire floor at the Academe Philosophia?”

“Negative,” Soundwave replied. “Culprit for that particular disaster, Academe Engineer Wheeljack.” He tilted his head, shrugging a little in resigned amusement. “Buzzsaw: rather scorched, but happy with resulting data. Academe governors, less so.”

“I would imagine.” They headed in the same general direction the mechling had taken, though it was obvious Pitch was no more eager to be summarily rejected than Soundwave was. “Your mob has gotten quite a reputation--I’m not sure whether I should be jealous, or just thankful that my cohort isn’t nearly so, er, ambitious in pursuing their interests.”

“Life, rarely boring,” Soundwave agreed. Coming to a circular plaza inlaid with metal-shot stone in intricate glyphs, he paused, scanning the area. The courtesan mechling re-emerged from the shadows, greeting them both with a dignified incline of his head. _//If you seek my sibling, he is down this path,//_ he said in a discreet, narrow-banded channel to them both, and stepped to one side, an elegantly-sculpted, six-fingered hand gesturing towards the path in question.

 _//Our thanks,//_ Pitch replied, and they proceeded onwards. Their search did not take long. The path wound back around on itself in a spiral artfully disguised by upthrust spires of reddish stone, and at its center, two crimson optics glittered from the darkness atop one of the spires.

“*More* carriers?” said an irate voice. Pitch and Soundwave glanced at each other, a bit nonplussed at the sheer disdain in those words. “And here I thought I’d been pestered by every mech in Iacon already.” A form moved forward, clawed wing-tips moving the little glideframe nimbly across the rock’s fissured face as he clambered into the light, inspecting them.

Every line of the little symbiont’s frame, from royal purple wingtips to the upswept audials surmounting a sculpted ebony helm, showcased Quasar’s artistry. Something that the glideframe was all too aware of, apparently, given the pinched look of dissatisfaction upon those finely crafted faceplates as he peered downwards. “You’re pretty enough, I suppose,” he told Pitch. “Too bad I’m looking for more than shiny plating.” The serpentframe hissed at the insult to his carrier, scaled armor rising, glowing with the beginnings of plasma-charge. The glideframe didn’t look impressed. “Yes, I know, he’s wonderful, I should be honored, and on and on--heard it all before, don’t bother, thanks for coming and make sure to have some highgrade on your way out. Feel free to stash some in your subspace, you’ll need it later.” The little head swivelled towards Soundwave. “And as for you, I don’t know where you dug up that giant frame but--” He stopped short on a squeak, crimson optics winking dark and then bright again in an obvious reset. “.... oh WOW.”

Soundwave took a reflexive step backwards as the glideframe launched himself into the air, diving downwards. The little symbiont landed upside-down on an upraised wrist-joint, tiny claws clamping down. He regarded the carrier with a fascinated, inverted gaze. “... that’s--wow, I’ve never seen--” The glideframe caught at Soundwave’s collar fairing with a claw-tipped wing, swinging himself closer to study the nonplussed mech, optic to visored optic, miniature gaze intense and searching.

“Do you even know,” the glideframe demanded in a confidential whisper, “how *interesting* you are? No, of course you don’t.” The little symbiont abandoned his examination of Soundwave’s faceplates. Wing-surfaces flailing, he caught at an armor seam with one wing-claw and pulled himself upright, then climbed the length of one arm and over Soundwave’s shoulders, inspecting the much-larger mech up one side and down the other, vocalizer purring with clicks and squeaks and high-pitched whistles. “Oh yeah, I LIKE you.” Clinging now to the top of Soundwave’s helm, the glideframe rubbed his faceplates happily against the inside surface of one audial fin. He patted Soundwave’s cranial plating with one clawed little wing-hand. “You’re the one, definitely. Hi, I’m Ratbat! Hey, what’s your designation?”

Silence, for a single long moment. “Well. Frag me to the Pit,” said Pitch, in wonder.

 

\--

 

Another thread of memory joined the first, weaving itself into the tapestry of thought and emotion …

_//Hey Ravage. Did you know that if you tweak class 4b6 irradiating nanites to daisy-chain energon transport, and then pour highgrade on them, they --//_

_//Get *down* from there, Buzzsaw!//_ The bladeframe bristled, talons flexing. Primus. He needed to find Soundwave another flightframe, preferably yesterday, because Buzzsaw desperately needed another equally neurotic mech to nettle. The Unmaker-be-damned birds were too high-strung to --

“Memory-keeper Ravage,” said a blue and yellow-striped carrier -- the third in as many breem -- bowing deeply, hands outstretched in a ritual greeting. As if the fool mecha could not see for themselves that Ravage was otherwise occupied. “I was hoping you might have time for....”

Every light in the compound went out, in a rolling flicker.

Huh, Ravage thought. Well, at least it shut up his would-be suitors.

 _//Whoops,//_ said Buzzsaw.

 

\--

 

Most mecha were equipped with thermal optical sensors, but switching over to them took several moments. Emergency lighting came back on just as most of the carriers finished rebooting their optics, blinding them once more. There was plenty of room for crashing and cursing -- and for two symbionts to escape the press of the crowd -- in that span of time.

Darting between and under great pillars and arches of imported stone, Buzzsaw and Ravage raced for their Master’s side, both perfectly aware that they didn’t want to be found anywhere near the site of the sabotage when it was invariably discovered. _//Uhm, hey Boss,//_ Buzzsaw sent, spotting Soundwave’s upswept sensor panels through the confused and milling throng. Not a difficult task in the best of times, now made even easier by the fact that every single unblinded mech around the big carrier was turning to stare. _//We should probably go n--//_

Soundwave seemed to have developed a lump atop his helm. Startled, Buzzsaw flared his flightplates and made a scrabbling landing on his carrier’s shoulder -- then nearly fell off when the lump hissed at him. “Primus!”

“Mine! Go away!” snarled the lump, flailing at him with fragging sharp little clawtips.

“What the frag?” Buzzsaw hissed back, mantling wings and hackling sensory spines upwards. What the frag was this little scrap doing on *his* carrier? “Back off, you glitched little rodent, or I’ll tear off your wings. He’s ours, not yours!” He snapped his beak in the lump’s general direction, hoping to scare the symbiont back off to his own carrier. Instead it hissed again, clinging even tighter to Soundwave’s helm. “Soundwave, what the Pit is going on?”

For once, Soundwave’s assumed calm seemed to have gone missing. The big carrier’s field was fritzed with consternation and unease, though he made no attempt to remove his new attachment. “Symbiont designation: Ratbat. His choice for a carrier, apparently … Soundwave.”

“What??” Buzzsaw made no effort to hide his indignation or his surprise. Nor did the rest of the crowd, albeit for entirely different reasons. “What the--how the frag--it hasn’t even been five breems! What the slag did you *say*?” It might not be the fastest courtship on record, but it came fragging close. _//And you didn’t even check to see if we were okay with this?//_ he added over the cohort channel, a little hurt. It was a carrier’s decision about whom they wished to court, of course, but most carriers paid at least nominal attention to the rest of the cohort’s feelings on the matter, if only in an attempt to keep any subsequent bickering to a minimum.

 _//Decision, Ratbat’s,//_ Soundwave told all of them over the cohort channel, letting them feel his bafflement. _//No courtship took place; no offer made. Ratbat’s reasons for choosing Soundwave, unknown.//_ And it was obvious that Soundwave found Ratbat’s motives in choosing to bond with a complete stranger beyond his comprehension.

Ravage was also bristling, though not quite as obviously as Buzzsaw. Raindance dropped out of the sky, landing on a nearby outcropping to regard the interloper with narrowed optics, as if contemplating the possibility of removing him by force.

 _//You were just, what, walking by and he fell on you? Look, Boss, you can’t just wander off with another carrier’s symbiont like this.//_ Primus. This was a public relations disaster. Soundwave wanted to sort-of-not-exactly-court another carrier’s fragging newspark, fine, whatever, but right here in in front of everybody? Buzzsaw used his tailtip to prod the lump’s flailing wing-claw away, which resulted only in more snarling and swiping. Buzzsaw switched to an open channel. _//Look here, you little glitch. You wanna switch? You do it like a normal symbiont -- talk to your carrier and explain yourself, instead of -- aarrrgh!//_ Fragging glideframes and their fragging little fangs! Like fragging needles!

“Yes. I second the motion.” The crowd parted around those flat, uninflected words, drawing back from Quasar’s slender, sculpted frame. The creator-mech walked to stand before Soundwave and his new lumpish addition. “I think an explanation is in order.”

 _//Buzzsaw. Enough.//_ Ravage looked up, to where the flightframe and glideframe were engaged in an angry shoving match around Soundwave’s audial fins. _//That is not a bonded symbiont.//_

Buzzsaw issued a click-popping noise, even as he did his best to pin the little glideframe’s head down. He got a faceful of wingplating and the boot of a little clawed pede -- right to the reactor linkage! -- for his trouble. _//Whatever. Like they just let unbonded symbionts wander around all over this place. There’s only one here, and he’s not exactly likely to--//_

He stopped. Looked over at the irate creator. Looked back down at the sharp-muzzled little glideframe he was currently trying to pin underneath one foot.

Oh.

_Frag._

Crimson optics glared up at him. _//MY carrier!//_

 _//Only if Soundwave agrees, pest,//_ he shot back, but let go, backing up and allowing the glideframe to regain his possessive perch on Soundwave’s helm.

“Ratbat. What is going on?” It was more command than question, really. Any other symbiont would have wilted under their creator’s obvious disapproval. Ratbat, on the other hand, didn’t seem to notice.

“I found my carrier!” he announced proudly, straightening up and patting the helm below him with possessive pride. “His name is Soundwave!”

Amid the crowd of watching mecha, an engine sputtered, an involuntary and shocked gasp. The air was so still, Soundwave could hear the distant murmur of traffic passing, far below.

“You. Found your. Carrier.” Quasar folded his hands quietly across his forearm plating.

He was probably, Buzzsaw figured, thinking roughly the same things everyone else was. Ratbat had refused every mech paraded before him for the last dozen vorn. Only the fact that the glideframe was here, with his creator, had kept his systems from crumbling into disrepair long before now. Buzzsaw could only imagine what Quasar felt about doing such routine maintenance for his creation.

But at the same time, a glideframe was among the most delicate of symbionts, irrefutably fragile and very shy. Usually very shy, anyway. They were placed with Chronicler-statisticians or other analysts, only rarely with archivists or historians. Soundwave was far from suitable, given his present fractious cohort.

Quasar tilted his head, a slight inclination. “You’ve known him for a breem.”

Ratbat patted his new carrier soothingly. “Two, really.” A low murmur circulated among the crowd, and the atmosphere was nearly vibrating with transmissions. “He feels right,” he explained. Symbionts exchanged glances with one another, several shrugged.

The creator-mech’s jaw tensors flexed. “Did you -- even *speak* with him?”

Ratbat raised his plating in a miniature shrug. “I asked him his designation. It’s Soundwave,” he he added helpfully, just in case anyone had missed it the first time.

In the hush, an incautious vocalization rang louder than the speaker probably intended. “--must have just opened up and shown everything. I heard he’s ten-framed!”

Helms, including Buzzsaw’s, turned. A full and final courting display by a strong carrier was undeniably alluring to a symbiont, and there could be no question that Soundwave’s was... more comely than most. Somewhere, the young carrier had learned a coyly masterful flare of field, a slight visible readjustment of docks that implied a core-deep welcome, without being crude or blatant. Not having known quite what to expect from such a young carrier, Buzzsaw had been exhilarated, delighted, by the dense and weaving silver halo of Soundwave’s cables alone. And the sight of Soundwave so-subtly spreading for it, for *him*, had been purely irresistible.

But, properly, a carrier did not make such a display before a symbiont he’d barely met. With a few ritual exceptions, that degree of invitation was not made in public at all. And Soundwave was nothing if not mannerly. “Hey! He did not! You come say that to my faceplates!” Buzzsaw hissed.

Standing a few steps to Soundwave’s side, Pitch shook his helm. “I was there. He did not --” his defense was drowned out by a rising murmur of angry or shocked vocalizations. A bristling Ravage backed Buzzsaw’s challenge with a grating metallic growl, so low the vibrations were felt more than heard, and the nearest mecha retreated, edging backwards in the face of the bladeframe’s anger.

Ignoring the crowd’s mutterings, Soundwave focused on the upset creator before him. “This outcome, unexpected,” he informed Quasar. “Any offer or acceptance of a bond, still yet to be made.”

The little glideframe froze, and for the first time Buzzsaw saw that impenetrable arrogance slip. “You … you don’t want me?” Ratbat asked, suddenly looking very small.

Soundwave stilled. Then reaching upwards, he tilted his helm forward, encouraging the little glideframe down into his cupped talons. Lowering his burden so that the now-uncertain symbiont was visible to both Quasar and himself, Soundwave shook his helm. “Incorrect. Soundwave: honored by your choice in carrier. Reasons behind your decision, not understood. This cohort, not regarded as... exemplary. Soundwave: of no particular note as carrier. Your options, many; your choice, illogical.”

Some of Quasar’s bristling indignation had faded at Soundwave’s blunt admission, Buzzsaw noted, though the artisan-creator still looked far from happy. “I agree. No offense to you or your cohort, Chronicler Soundwave, but--after all this time, why this one, Ratbat?”

“Because he’s *interesting*, Creator,” came the reply, Ratbat’s pointed little face looking down at the mech who had spun his spark, who had created his frame, one tiny incorporation at a time. “All the others were so predictable. I could see it, just the way we talked about--all the same patterns, over and over and over. Nothing ever changing, just the same spread of variances, the same beginnings, the same endings. But not this one! He’s an outlier. He’s gonna be different, going to go on and change and be something no one’s ever seen before.” He twisted again, looking back up at Soundwave, petting the talons that curled upward protectively with his own tiny clawed hands. “I like that. And I want to be there to see it!”

“But …” Quasar seemed to be searching for an argument, derailed by his creation’s unexpected answer. “He’s … he’s not *safe*, Ratbat. He’s not the class you were made for.”

Buzzsaw bristled again at the slight to his Master, but kept silent. Even he had to admit they weren’t the most normal cohort, nor the safest one--even if that wasn’t nearly as much his fault as everyone else kept insisting it was.

Little Ratbat seemed momentarily dismayed, uneasy, thoughts crossing his faceplates in a rapid flicker of small expressions. It was difficult to ignore a creator’s wishes, though Buzzsaw wondered if there were... more to it than that. The glideframe looked around, to the whispering carriers, the stunned or jealous, angry or confused faces. Then he steeled himself. “I... know. I want him anyway,” Ratbat maintained.

 _//Know?//_ Ravage and Buzzsaw exchanged glances with Raindance, not certain what the little symbiont meant, exactly. He’d used the loosest possible glyph-sound for ‘know’ -- a vague and unadorned vocalization. Without modifiers, it could mean anything from awareness or sensation to first-hand certainty. Symbionts were normally very precise in their wording; Ratbat had been no different, so far as any of them could tell. Though to be sure, even when he’d used the naturally exact glyphs of his statistician’s purpose, he was hardly any clearer. Patterns? Outlier? And... endings?

Quasar slowly nodded. Not happily, not with any kind of eagerness, but he nodded. “Please return to your enjoyments, honored guests. Soundwave, will you and yours join myself and Ratbat? In private, if you please.” The artisan-creator gestured politely.

Ratbat twisted around to look up at Soundwave.

Soundwave inclined his head. “Affirmative,” he replied, and followed the smaller mech towards the private areas of Quasar’s residence, Ratbat still cradled in his hands. The rest of his cohort followed: Buzzsaw and Raindance both quickly taking a perch, one on each shoulder, and glaring defiantly at the staring, muttering crowd, while Ravage stalked along behind, tail lashing slowly as if to ward off anyone who thought to follow.

\--

Quasar’s living quarters were well-appointed; luxurious, even, by most mecha’s standards. Buzzsaw took in the elegant furnishings out of habit more than true curiosity; they all had much more important things to worry about at the moment.

Quasar turned, and gestured to several adjustable platforms arranged around a low table, the surface supporting a glittering hardlight hologram. “If you would be seated …” He walked a few steps, as if to begin to pace--then pivoted on one pede, turning back to face them with a vented sigh. “I fear I have given Recast far too little credit, if this is what one has to deal with when designing for the Chronicler class.” His optics fell on Ratbat, who was clinging fiercely to Soundwave’s talons as if he feared being removed by force.

Soundwave sat obediently, but Buzzsaw and the others stayed tucked close to their Master’s frame. Quasar’s dissatisfaction with Ratbat’s choice--and considering the way the little pest had gone about doing the choosing, Buzzsaw found it hard to blame him--was obvious, but they weren’t about to give him the chance to blame or threaten Soundwave for it.

“Or perhaps in my arrogance, I overreached,” Quasar said, more softly this time, as if he were talking to himself. “Ratbat … did not tell you anything, then? Of himself? Or allow you to do the same?”

The creator mech did not seem surprised at Soundwave’s small, negative helm shake. Quasar shuttered his optics briefly, and joined Soundwave at the seating. He gestured subtly, and a slender and silent mechling seemed to appear from nowhere. The elegant courtesan-frame laid a tray between the two mecha, then backed away at a nod from his creator, the subtle skill inherent in the young mech’s diffidence nearly as effective as a cloaking device.

The tray of energon was itself inlaid with flakes of some glossy, opalescent organic substance. Six small cubes of energon glowed almost white, and rested atop chips of actual water ice. Several sculpted jars along the side contained a variety of mineral additives. “Please,” Quasar invited, selecting one of the chilled cubes for himself. He cupped it between his talons, composing himself.

Ratbat, for his part, seemed far less interested in the proceedings than with Soundwave himself. Once certain he was not to be forced away, the little glideframe took to examining the carrier’s wrist assembly -- the small plates and gears and flexures between and beneath the heavier armor -- sniffing and prodding. The symbiont gave the joint a tentative lick, the bundled sensory and capillary wires of his small glossa a prickly little touch, then moved on, climbing over into Soundwave’s lap to continue his possessive explorations.

“Ratbat was intended -- I intended him -- for efficiency studies, principally to aid with the deepening energon shortages.” Quasar studied the nearly-clear fuel in his cube. It was no secret that vast numbers of warframes were sparked every day, were given a single vorn to adapt and train -- sometimes not even that -- before being sent to the front lines. The rate of production was enormously draining, and feeding distant troops even more so. And even still, the amount of energon leaving Cybertron would not have been enough to keep the armies fueled. Rumors of Megatron’s means of making up the difference had already begun to spread -- illegal strip mines, solar captures.

“To that end, I studied and incorporated the spark subpatterns of dozens of the reference-symbionts most suited for their roles -- the finest of their kind,” Quasar took a small sip, rolling the highly refined energon across his intakes. He reached to add a few lithium shavings to his cube, using tiny silver tongs from the tray. “Ratbat was sparked with more deep-level cross referencing and non-processor extrapolation architectures than any other symbiont, before or since -- along with a share of sparkware sequences that even I do not fully understand. But something did not... come together right. Or perhaps it came together too well....”

“I can see the future! Sometimes. A little bit,” blurted Ratbat impatiently, from where he now hung upside down from Soundwave’s thigh armor, near the bend of his knee joint. “Your legs are weird,” the symbiont added.

Quasar flinched, while Soundwave’s symbionts exchanged glances. “Not... exactly. With enough data, Ratbat seems able to extrapolate the most probable outcomes in any given situation.” It was a very difficult skill for a symbiont to master, as their class lacked any kind of real processing ability -- though not unheard of. Quasar tilted his cube a little. “But he also makes... occasional intuitive leaps.”

From his place seated beside Soundwave, Ravage lifted his head from eyeing the small flailing glideframe. “Imagination is not unique to large mecha,” he said flatly. It was, Buzzsaw thought, true--but also perhaps a little bit of an overstatement. Intuition required both experience and a the ability to do a certain amount of high-level cross-referencing of that experience, and the capacity of the average symbiont to do the latter was very limited.

Quasar drew a slow, circulating vent. “He believes these intuitions arise from actual datasets -- datasets which he does not demonstrably possess.”

Soundwave absorbed that statement. He looked down to where the symbiont in question was currently poking curiously at the overlapping armor on Soundwave’s lower leg. “That claim, difficult to prove or disprove,” he said, tacitly acknowledging Quasar’s unease. “Ratbat: has made other predictions?” At the creator’s nod, Soundwave asked, “Query: success/failure ratio of resulting course of action?”

“He’s … almost always right,” Quasar admitted reluctantly.

“Positive outcomes at least 92 percent of the time,” Ratbat put in proudly. “And that last eight percent was within normal statistical variances and not my fault!”

“Where have we heard that one before?” Raindance muttered, and Buzzsaw gave him a dirty look.

 _//Are we actually taking this slag seriously?//_ he asked over the cohort channel. _//The little pest is glitched, Soundwave--I don’t care what he was framed for, no one can predict the future! Flare’s Third Law says--//_

 _//Flare’s theories, widely accepted, but only partially proven,//_ Soundwave replied. _//Other theories of nonlinear time/space interaction, valid avenues of thought. Accuracy of previous predictions, intriguing.//_

Raindance shifted, watching Ratbat with winglets folded across his chassis and a considering air. _//Newsparked symbionts have a great deal of potential. But they can also cause a great deal of trouble, and this one probably more than most, given his track record so far. Plus he’s a glideframe--they’re not very durable. You sure you want to deal with that?//_

 _//Soundwave: very young as well,//_ their carrier reminded them, a certain amount of humor edging into the channel. _//Our cohort, also likely better equipped to deal with trouble than most.//_

 _//He’s bold. Not afraid to go after what he wants.//_ Ravage sounded vaguely approving. _//Regardless of what Quasar intended, I can’t see this one happily crunching numbers and nothing else--he’d drive some poor statistician-carrier glitched.//_ He glanced sidelong, up at his Master. _//He would be an interesting addition. Not sure how long he’ll last, but if he’s telling the truth about what he can do … such an ability could be invaluable.//_

 _//Boss … are you seriously going to get suckered by a cute face and a pair of bright optics?//_ Buzzsaw still didn’t like the idea, and was more than a little convinced Soundwave was only considering it because he felt sorry for the pest. _//He’s conning us!//_

 _//Ratbat: could have almost any carrier he desired,//_ Soundwave reminded him.

 _//Yeah, I know, but ...//_ Buzzsaw subsided, unable to find a good argument to that, but just knowing he didn’t like it. Didn’t like the way the little lump clung to *his* carrier, didn’t like the things he’d said about Soundwave earlier … but in the end it was Soundwave’s decision, not his.

Soundwave pulsed wordless _affection/reassurance_ at them all, and turned his attention outward once more. “Decision made,” he told a waiting Quasar, then lowered one hand down to where Ratbat still clung to his lower leg, encouraging the glideframe to climb up. Lifting the small symbiont to eye level, he said evenly, “Soundwave: will formally offer his bond, if Ratbat and Quasar will accept it.”

“Well yeah, of course!” Ratbat said, eyeing Soundwave as if perhaps the carrier had somehow managed to miss the whole point of the whole last couple of breem. The glideframe could see that Soundwave, no matter how fascinating and statistically anomalous the carrier might be, would need all kinds of help from Ratbat. He took the opportunity to climb with prickling little clawtips up onto Soundwave’s shoulder plating once more, thoroughly pleased with all the nice creases and ridges that provided him with plenty of claw-holds along the way.

Quasar held his chilled cube of highgrade to his forehelm for a few moments. He really should be careful, Buzzsaw thought -- a mech could get processor-relay freeze like that. Then he downed the expensive energon liquor in a single swallow. “You have my blessing,” the artisan-creator said at last, shaking his helm as if he could not entirely believe himself and reaching out for another cube, “and whatever else I can supply -- for as long as he needs it.”

“Great!” Ratbat said, as if creator-mecha frequently made offers to essentially support their creations indefinitely. He reached out to pat Soundwave’s audial fin, cast a pleased look around at the rest of the big carrier’s cohort. They looked pretty efficient; he supposed he’d tolerate them. “We’re gonna be great together, just you wait and see!”


	4. Chapter 4

Buzzsaw’s memory lingered through the cohort, binding them together in remembered amusement and affectionate exasperation both. Laserbeak rose out of it reluctantly, luxuriating in the shared warmth he had not been privileged to witness. He reached up to give his flight brother a good-humored nudge, stroking the flat side of his beak along Buzzsaw’s sinuous neckplates, metal gliding on oiled metal. _//I must admit, watching you get into a shoving match with Ratbat over the Master’s helm never ceases to amuse,//_ he sent, scanning the quiet room, listening to the gentle lap of oil and the subtle rattle underneath their master’s occasional ventilations. Soundwave had taken a beating; and while Flipsides’ ministrations had helped, Laserbeak could only hope that his stoic master was not concealing other, deeper injuries... ones that his cohort could not fix.

Buzzsaw angled his neck into the caress, settling back down with a quiet puff of air. Laserbeak’s shoulder, it turned out, was a very comfortable place to rest his chinplates. _//A master of comedic timing, that’s me,//_ he replied wryly. _//Not that I have to try very hard with the batling around.//_ He curled himself a little tighter into their tangle, pressing his beak into the joint of Laserbeak’s wing and spreading a few more flightplates over Ratbat. Clumped close like this, all three symbionts warmed each other in the banked fires of their bodies. Buzzsaw’s optics were already half-shuttered. _//All quiet so far. Mneh … share something nice for the new guy, okay?//_ Buzzsaw might not like Soundwave’s habit of picking up strays, but he had to admit that this one was at least proving useful. _//He’s been through a lot ….//_

Laserbeak considered the request, even as he opened up sensory arrays, keeping watch. He could continue the thread of their cohort’s story, and tell of the time that he came to accept Soundwave’s courtship, and joined Ravage as a brother in truth … but the slow-sparking joy of that memory was also inescapably intertwined with his grief over Diffraction’s death. No--such a memory was not appropriate. Not for a mechkin still mourning the murder of a brother, still grieving the spark-wrenching choice to walk away from his carrier.

Instead Laserbeak chose a different memory; a warmer one, sharing the remembrance of a homecoming and a promise fulfilled ….

 

***

“Wow. This is a *tiny* planet, Master,” Sundor said, craning his head to take in everything as they stepped off the shuttle’s ramp and into the dense haze of Xyr’s atmosphere. The golden flightframe fluffed his plating uncomfortably, wings half furled as he resisted the urge to take off and explore. “And overcast, too,” he added disapprovingly, optics peering up at the weak blue light of the system’s twin suns. “How the slag does anyone recharge properly here? Especially with such a piddly amount of radiation to work with?”

“Not everyone likes to hog the spotlight, yanno,” Buzzsaw retorted from his prized spot on Soundwave’s shoulder. Laserbeak had claimed the other, of course, as was only due his rank, while Sundor had to make do with a gauntlet-perch. Raindance had spiralled high into the sky the moment they had landed, and Ratbat, of course, was asleep -- still, wreathed by flightframes and with Ravage pacing at his side, Laserbeak couldn’t help but note that his master was attracting more than a few covetous, admiring, or startled gazes from nearby mecha.

 _//You’ll not need to recharge, unless we stay longer than planned,//_ Laserbeak pointed out, neck arched in a supple S-shaped curve. _//The flying conditions are quite favorable, and you should burn little fuel.//_ Although it could muster only about two-thirds of Cybertron’s gravity, Xyr boasted an atmosphere some twelve times as dense. A warm breeze, thick with carbon dioxide, ruffled Laserbeak’s flightplates as Soundwave started down one of the long access walkways. Behind them, crew-mecha filtered out of the long range transport vessel, stretching their limbs and hurrying for the cargo bays.

 _//The flying really is good,//_ Raindance said, twisting through dizzying loops and corkscrews overhead, not as agile as the flightframes but far faster as he shook off the torpor of a long interstellar trip.

 _//The suns are terrible, though,//_ Sundor grouched stubbornly.

The spaceport was not large, but unusually, was located on the planet itself. Xyr’s storm-free, low gravity surface made for easy landings and takeoffs. Most ships with landing gear or full antigravs could touch down safely. And that meant their crews could enjoy a few very welcome orns on a planetary surface, while their ships took on crystals, cut stone, and other luxury goods.

But beyond entertainment and status symbols for the wealthy, Xyr’s largest industry... was its Chroniclers. Symbionts were rare creatures throughout the empire, and carriers less common still. On most planets, Chroniclers might number one in a thousand, or even one in two thousand. Here, symbionts were everywhere -- rustling among the crates, winging between vessels, peering at the newcomers with brightly faceted optics, or waddling across Soundwave’s path intent on business of their own. Laserbeak counted a dozen symbionts just on the short walk to the visitor center at the edge of the small spaceport, plus another carrier disembarking from a ship more recently arrived at the landing docks. Within joors, the entire planet would know of Soundwave’s arrival. And Ravage’s.

It was very different from his travels with Diffraction. Laserbeak’s previous cohort had been one of the most knowledgeable on Cybertron, but Diffraction had gained his rank like any other carrier -- one megavorn and one symbiont at a time. While it wasn’t exactly strange for a carrier not ten vorn away from his creator to have attracted six symbionts, Laserbeak knew of none who had managed to assemble a cohort like... well. Like *this.* Perhaps Ravage knew of another, but Laserbeak doubted it.

It made him nervous, sometimes, to reflect upon his present course. Soundwave was undeniably alluring. But a few extra cables and an extraordinary transfer rate -- even if remembering the overpowering rush of that transfer rate raised a shiver up the flightframe’s struts -- would not keep either Soundwave or his cohort safe. More than a few carriers seemed to think that Soundwave’s meteoric rise was nothing more than an anomaly … a fluke born of proximity rather than talent. Several had seriously attempted to court Ravage, and Laserbeak judged that it would only be a matter of time before one of them decided to move against Soundwave himself in a bid to overpower the younger carrier. A symbiont Laserbeak’s age simply did not entrust his future, his survival, to a Master this young. It did not happen.

Except that Ravage had done just that. And then Buzzsaw. Even Raindance and Sundor were higher-ranked than the symbionts who typically joined their fates to such a young carrier. And now, Laserbeak had joined them in this madness. And then there was Ratbat, who was... well. Ratbat was Ratbat.

And Laserbeak wasn’t sure of what to make of that, either.

 _//Laserbeak, would prefer to dock?//_ Soundwave inquired, the big carrier’s field lapping warm around the flightframe’s own, a subtly encompassing sensation that felt like a balm over weld lines and weakened places.

Laserbeak shuttered his optics, leaning into the caress, tail curling a little more tightly around a ridge of Soundwave’s armor. _//I would prefer to remain out,//_ he said, and it still felt odd to express his preferences so openly.

Sundor lashed his own shining tail in annoyance as Soundwave waited for the customs mech. There was only one here, and he was decidedly unhurried. The mech finally finished entering the passenger list and approached with his hand-held scanner, passing it cursorily over Soundwave to check for dangerous offworld substances, such as scraplet eggs or particular bits of viral coding. The entry protocol here was almost absurdly relaxed compared to Cybertron, or Turl or Naabrox or any of the more militarized border worlds. Raindance spiraled down to be checked as well, and Sundor’s impatience aside, the whole process took only a few moments.

“Enjoy your stay, Soundwave,” said the customs mech, pinging his acknowledgment of the clearance files the carrier proffered, and then the bureaucrat shuffled along to the next arrival. Exiting the the receiving office, Soundwave stepped down onto Xyr’s surface at long last.

Xyr’s wide roads were built of the local stone, crushed and cemented in place with finely-ground aragonite. It made for a more pleasant surface than Cybertron’s unforgiving metal highways. The spaceport occupied most of an expansive plateau; Xyr’s largest city spread out along the slopes below them. The city hardly deserved that designation -- perhaps ten thousand mecha were resident here, plus another few thousand dock workers, visitors, traveling traders, and of course, Chroniclers. Curls of solvent mists gathered in the lowest places, ghosting down the shadowed valleys and the crystal farms there.

Recast’s studio was not in the main city proper, but rather on the outskirts of a neighboring settlement. Soundwave’s creator was not as reclusive as some, but he still preferred the quiet and orderly calm of his own estate to the loud and bustling confines of a city, and after megavorn spent in the grand city-states of Cybertron, Laserbeak could also appreciate the relative quiet of Xyr … as long as they didn’t stay *too* long. The drive to Recast’s estate was an easy one; the well-maintained roads made for swift travel, and they made good time, Raindance flying in lazy wide passes overhead as he reacquainted himself with Xyr’s silvered skies. Little had changed since Laserbeak’s last visit, only ten vorn ago … though he had never thought to be returning so soon, or without Diffraction.

Upon their arrival, Soundwave opened his hatch, allowing the remainder of his cohort to exit, then transformed. There was a brief tussle for their carrier’s other shoulder between Buzzsaw and Ratbat, which Laserbeak observed with aloof amusement from his own undisputed perch. Ratbat won, mostly through sheer stubbornness. Despite his stubby wing and pedeclaws, the glideframe was remarkably good at clinging to surfaces. Buzzsaw soon gave up trying to nudge him off and took wing instead, joining Sundor, gliding overhead in lazy curves to explore this new place as Soundwave made his way up the mist-fogged path.

Recast was waiting, of course; Soundwave had sent notice of their arrival upon landing. The smaller creator-mech stepped out to greet them, his field suffused with pride and affection. And, if Laserbeak was not very much mistaken, the gathering node of a newly-forming spark.

“It is good to see you again, Soundwave,” he said, reaching out to run agile, nimble fingers along the taller mech’s plating, checking for flaws or damage. “Though I must confess, I didn’t think it would be so soon. I have heard a great many stories of your cohort’s exploits; you must make sure to share a few with me.” Satisfied with the state of his creation’s maintenance, Recast turned, inclining his helm first to Ravage, then to Laserbeak. “It is good to see you both as well, Memory-keepers Ravage, Laserbeak.”

Soundwave submitted to his creator’s inspection gracefully. “Further introductions, also required.” Laserbeak heard the call go out, his Master summoning the wandering members of their cohort back to his side. “Other companions: Buzzsaw, Raindance, Sundor, and --” lifting a hand to the small glideframe on his shoulder, “-- Ratbat.”

Recast’s optics widened fractionally as the true size of the young carrier’s cohort became apparent. While too experienced a creator to remark on it, his pride and approbation were evident as the flightframes and seekerframe spiralled downward, wheeling gracefully in an elaborate aerial dance for the creator’s benefit. Fully flighted symbionts were fairly rare, outnumbered two to one by the ground-bound. To attract no less than five of them was extraordinary in and of itself; to attract ones of such status was nothing short of a wonder.

Recast blinked again as Buzzsaw made a scrabbling landing on his shoulder -- the creator-mech’s pauldron plating was much smoother than Soundwave’s, lacking the ornamentation and venting that made for such a nice grip. Buzzsaw craned his neck to peer at the creator, his optics whirring. “Hi,” he said. “You consulted on my latest targeting relay upgrade. Thanks!” Then Sundor made too close a flyby, and Buzzsaw hissed at the other symbiont, lifting his pede and ducking his head in a gesture rather less polite than Soundwave would have preferred.

Recast laughed aloud, a surprised sound. “Buzzsaw, created by Enthalpy?” he asked his newest shoulder-mounted addition, who chirruped in affirmation. “You are most welcome.” He turned his optics, bright with pride, back to Soundwave. “You are all welcome.”

Side by side, the two mecha mounted the rampway that led to the main quarters. “Motif and Crosswise will be glad to meet you all. And I will admit, your timing is fortuitous,” Recast said, as the compound’s beautifully molded front gate swept open for them. The central hallway was sculpted from cut and polished native stone, the flooring as immaculately polished as ever. Suitable perches for flighted frames of all kinds had been worked into the subtle designs of the walls. Just the sight of this place, the cool encompass and humidity of the stone -- it felt like coming home.

Soundwave tilted his helm, obviously noticing the same thing Laserbeak had earlier observed. Recast’s electromagnetic field was subtly lobed, distorted slightly from the smooth sphere that most mecha emitted. “Query, Creator Recast is presently budding protometal?” he inquired, modulating his tone for as much politeness as he could manage.

The creator’s faceplates spread in a gentle smile. “I already have. The eldest has incubated for a full vorn, now, and is ready for his spark.” He cast a glance at the bladeframe pacing beside Soundwave. “In honor of Memory-keeper Ravage, I am crafting the parts for a bladeframe. If, of course, the little one is so willing.”

“Soundwave, Soundwave!” A symbiont, not yet quite fully framed, careened around the corner and launched himself at the tall carrier’s leg. Ravage and Laserbeak exchanged amused glances -- it might be rather a breach of protocol to climb another cohort’s carrier, but in this case, they could hardly blame the mechling.

Soundwave stooped a little, cupping his hands, though Motif needed no assistance. _//Motif, grown very large,//_ Soundwave said admiringly, and the symbiont warbled a thoroughly happy laugh.

 _//Not so large as some, Soundwave!//_ Motif said, hugging Soundwave’s upper arm in a strong grip. The hatchling had developed into the largest of mechkin subtypes: a simianoid, as comfortable on four pedes as two. He was perhaps three-quarters of Ravage’s weight; large indeed for a symbiont. Even still, he was as elegantly assembled as any of Recast’s creations, with big, wise-seeming optics and an upturned chemoreceptor unit. His glossy plating was layered in subtle variations of white and silver, offset with bold black trim. Broad sensory blades along head and nape, now half-flared, leant the symbiont a perpetually inquisitive air. _//And you should see Crosswise. I think he’s practically as big as you, almost!//_

Ratbat looked up from where he was grooming the underside of his glide surface, and peered over Soundwave’s shoulder at the newcomer. “Hey!” he squeaked, startled. “You go away! This one is mi -- eep!” A prod from Laserbeak’s tail nearly unseated him.

“Ratbat: meet Motif,” Soundwave said, lifting his arm so that the glideframe and climbframe could get a better look at each other. “Motif, Soundwave’s sibling-creation, along with Crosswise.”

Ratbat eyed the other half-framed mechling symbiont doubtfully, and tightened his possessive grip on Soundwave’s shoulder. “Hunh. So what’re *you* good at?” Ravage growled at the rude question, and Ratbat bristled defensively, tucking in his wings. “What? I’m just asking!”

“Motif: not designed for any particular foci,” Soundwave explained, glancing at Recast, who backed up that statement with a nod. “His explorations, just beginning; interests, not yet formed. Unless this has changed?” He tilted his head down at the mechling symbiont.

“Not yet,” Motif replied cheerfully, unfazed by Ratbat’s prickly question. “‘m learning a lot, though! And I really like the xenosciences--organics are fascinating. So squishy!” They continued on down the corridor to the main living space, Motif chattering happily about the various factoids he’d learned.

“--and didja know that the Kreem on Milhew have *forty-two* different genders? They change every coupla orn, based on their location and planetary rotation. They have different alt-configurations and social dictates for each alt, too--apparently the head of the first contact team nearly had a meltdown trying to track all of ‘em!” Motif was obviously very impressed by this. Laserbeak exchanged a benevolently amused look with Ravage; while symbionts never stopped being curious, of course, it had been a long time since either of them had viewed the universe with that kind of innocent newsparked wonder.

“Such worlds, very interesting to observe,” Soundwave agreed.

Crosswise soon arrived as well, escorting them into the living area with barely-suppressed eagerness and the awkward dignity that seemed to follow all young carriers as they grew into their frames. In contrast to Motif’s elegant silver and white lines, Crosswise was armored in vivid jewel-toned blues and greens, trimmed with crackled silver that seemed to shimmer. He was also now more than two-thirds Soundwave’s height, close to his adult dimensions, though his plating still lacked the heavier armor of a fully framed carrier.

“Recast told me you’d be here soon--did you really come all the way back from the Academe just to see us?” ‘Us’ meaning Crosswise, of course; the young carrier practically vibrated with nervous excitement and worry as he filled a tray of cubes, and brought them to the low table in Recast’s sitting room. He glanced between Soundwave and Ravage’s elegantly bladed form as he laid the cubes out on the table and clamped perches into place for the flightframes. He had obviously not forgotten Ravage’s promise, and ten vorn of waiting had done little to blunt his eagerness.

Soundwave nodded, disentangling Motif’s curious fingers from his plating, where the symbiont was examining a small section that Soundwave had replaced sometime in the last few vorn. “Affirmative. Additionally, to seek repairs for symbionts.” He handed Motif over to Crosswise, who relaxed a little, a tiny amount of his nervousness fading from his field. The pair might not be bonded yet, but Soundwave knew his kind too well to suppose that Crosswise was entirely comfortable with watching the symbiont be handled so freely by an older carrier. Crosswise straightened, faceplates spreading in a grateful smile. Motif happily clambered up Crosswise’s frame, sensing nothing amiss.

“Yeah,” Ratbat said, spreading his wings to glide down to one of the perches, “‘cause *somebody* stepped on my pede. And now it feels all funny.” He accomplished his landing, however, without any particular trouble. He examined the contents of the cube with a beady, critical little optic. “Hey, how come this is hot? And what’s in it?”

Buzzsaw snorted. “Like your dented toes are more important than Laserbeak’s welds and frostburn,” he said, restraining himself from swooping in and stealing a perch. If he waited for an invitation, then later Soundwave would stroke and scritch his audials and neckplates long after everyone else had gone into recharge. Even still, it was a battle to keep from just taking what he wanted -- and he always liked sampling new energon additives.

“Please, help yourselves,” Recast gestured, folding himself down onto his knee joints and lifting a gauntlet to help Buzzsaw to the closest perch. “Frostburn?” he inquired. “Tell me more -- if you will, Memory-keeper,” he said, bowing his helm respectfully.

At Laserbeak’s affirmative, Soundwave raised his own hand. Laserbeak stepped from Soundwave’s shoulder and onto the back of his gauntlet, unwinding his tail, then hopped lightly to Recast’s wrist. The creator-mech had handled Laserbeak several times for repairs in the past, and the symbiont both liked and trusted him. Recast was always calm and soothingly unhurried, which was uncommon in a creator. “I was caught in the periphery of the Triss Cluster breakup,” said Laserbeak simply, quietly. News of that mining community’s disaster -- the entire conglomeration of frigid ice and rock asteroids had been sundered during an invasion by the Tr!klcctch -- had already reached the whole of the empire. Recast nodded gravely, his fingertips just lightly brushing along Laserbeak’s flanks and wings.

Ratbat lifted his muzzle from the surface of the energon, small prickly glossa licking his faceplates clean. “This is good!” he announced, then cast an appraising glance around the table. His optics narrowed. Sundor’s cube was clearly more full than Ratbat’s. Larger, too. Craftily, the glideframe began shuffling sideways along his perch.

“Ratbat.” Soundwave did not say anything other than Ratbat’s name--but his voice was flat and uninflected, his visored gaze implacable. The little glideframe wilted as he registered the displeasure in his master’s field. Ratbat, like all of them, was well-fuelled, and his own portion of energon more than sufficient for a symbiont.

 _//But his is bigger!//_ he protested feebly on a narrow-banded channel.

 _//Irrelevant. Energon, offered to Sundor.//_ Soundwave’s glyphs were stark, allowing no room for dissent. _//Theft, inappropriate between cohort-siblings. Squabbling over resources, inefficient.//_ Which was a cardinal sin in Ratbat’s world. Even so, when balanced against the young glideframe’s innocently acquisitive greed, such arguments typically made less headway than they should, Laserbeak knew from experience.

Ratbat hunched a little, more at the fact that he had been caught out than any real remorse. _//Won’t touch, Boss,//_ he promised, shifting back to wrap wing-talons protectively about his own cube. _//... even if I was only going to take a *little* bit ...//_ Soundwave ignored that last tiny mutter with the air of a carrier who knew when to pick his battles, and surveyed the gathering. Motif sat near Buzzsaw around the low table, the younger symbiont listening intently to one of the flightframe’s stories. Ravage had stretched out on his underchassis beside Soundwave, his cube between his forepedes, the tip of his tail just brushing his Master's leg. Sundor idly groomed Raindance, the pair crowded onto the same perch. Crosswise was enrapt, optics wide, his energon untouched and forgotten before him. The young carrier had been exposed to symbionts other than Motif, of course, but probably never this many at once. And certainly none like this. Soundwave turned his attention back to Recast.

“Recast, able to correct worn-in damage from older injuries?” he asked his creator, who was deep in conversation with the flightframe perched on his gauntlet.

“Hm? What’s that?” Recast paused, looking attentive -- and then unfolded one hand and forearm into a complex assemblage of many-pronged, multiphase calipers and probes and capacitor meters, as well as other tools for which Soundwave had no specific name. Recast skimmed the tips lightly over Laserbeak’s breast and flanks, moving in carefully measured increments as the flightframe obligingly lifted one wing. “So I see... an interesting question. We should scan for microcrystalline fractures....” Recast stood with calm grace, then hesitated, seeming only then to notice the rest of the table. “Crosswise, will you show our guests to the residence wing?”

Motif nudged his creator’s kneeplate. “Soundwave already knows the way,” he whispered helpfully, accustomed to making allowances for his creator’s habit of dumping memory stacks after just a few vorn. He blinked up at the tall carrier. “We kept your quarters just the same,” he said, thoroughly pleased with himself. Not that Soundwave had left much behind. Then Motif wriggled, embarrassed. “Uhm, well, except for the scratches. Pardon me, Keeper Ravage.” They’d needed a whole new berthtop, among other things. To the young symbiont’s obvious relief, Ravage simply inclined his helm and returned to his energon.

Soundwave was already levering himself to his pedes, standing head and shoulders over Recast. “Metal fatigue scanners, in your workspace?” he asked.

The creator mech nodded thoughtfully. Crosswise looked up, hopeful. “I could watch everyone else--maybe show them around?” he said, optics glowing.

Ravage lifted his head, considering the young carrier. _//I will remain,//_ he told Soundwave. _//For a time.//_

Buzzsaw made a squeaking noise, a habit he’d probably picked up from Ratbat. _//We’re not that bad--we don’t need someone to watch us, Boss!//_ he protested, twisting his head upside down to peer at the half-framed mechling, as if the change in perspective might somehow improve Buzzsaw’s opinion of the young carrier’s merits.

Sundor glanced up as well, orange and gold flickering over his plating. _//His field isn’t illuminative the way yours is. I doubt this mechling could show us anything that would be of the slightest interest,//_ the flightframe pointed out bluntly, turning back to Raindance’s engine housings.

“--like maybe the new basking room? With the solar collectors?” Crosswise asked, oblivious, hurriedly standing as well.

 _//Nevermind!//_ chirruped Sundor and Buzzsaw simultaneously. _//We’ll stay!//_

 

*****

 

Recast’s workshop was still just as meticulously organized, but seemed a little less expansive than Laserbeak recalled. Between all the prodding and stroking and quiet murmuring over his plating, it took the flightframe a little while to spot why, but eventually he identified the difference; a section in the back had been partitioned off with a sliding wall and carefully-assembled airlocks, in order to regulate temperature and filter out contaminants. Many creator-mecha had such chambers permanently built into their residences, and kept them filled with protometal support pods, each one inhabited by a delicate form, curled to incubate and grow and await its spark. Recast, however, began new projects only rarely, and had little need for a permanent chamber--this temporary addition to his workshop was large enough to support only two or three such pods.

It took several joors for Recast to determine and catalogue the full extent of Laserbeak’s injuries. Soundwave waited patiently through the exam, his field placidly soothing and warm, some part of the big carrier always close enough for Laserbeak to touch. While the creator mech puzzled over a detached segment of Laserbeak’s external plating and a linked portion of conjoined joints and flexures, the flightframe settled himself more comfortably into the crook of Soundwave’s arm. It always felt strange to have sensory cilia exposed like this -- and stranger still to feel new populations of reconstruction nanites at work within his chassis. Feeling uncomfortably exposed, his weaknesses bared to the world, Laserbeak expelled a vent, letting his wedge-shaped helm rest against Soundwave’s flanged side. The slight movement brought a object into view, a small metal piece cradled in a stasis cube on a nearby shelf, and Laserbeak blinked. It was a symbiont’s sparkchamber, larger than most, the latticed cybertronium shell gleaming with protometal threads, engraved with connection points for power leads and conduits, along with the mechanisms for a primitive tertiary fuel pump and reservoir. It was complete, but presently empty.

“Creator Recast,” Laserbeak said respectfully, when Recast had turned to his tool racks. “Do you plan to spark ere long?” he asked, not wanting to interrupt any potentially critical preparations.

“Oh, in an orn or two, perhaps,” Recast said, examining several canisters of metal additives with a critical optic. Laserbeak exchanged a startled look with Soundwave. So soon! Many creators--his own included--tended to mew themselves away into the safety of their own estates, their own cohorts, in the cycles and orns immediately prior to spark implantation. Which was only logical; spark-spinning was a delicate process, one that sapped a mech’s energy reserves and laid bare one’s innermost self, leaving it defenseless. And once sparked, creator-made hatchlings were frighteningly vulnerable -- unlike fission-budded frames, which could be inserted into more-complete chassis with little danger of rejection. Even in times of peace, a creator’s endeavors could be risky; and Laserbeak remembered older, darker times, when creator-mecha kept their fields and their frames tightly contained, concealing all signs of their creation until long after the new hatchling frame was fully sparked.

Despite the growing threat of the Tr!klcctch, things were not yet so dire as to require such extreme measures--that Recast had welcomed them into his home so easily was rather disconcerting. Soundwave turned his helm, inspecting his creator minutely. “Query: our arrival, ill-timed?”

“What?” Recast said vaguely, all his attention on the piece of armor before him. “Perhaps if we code these assemblers to replace, rather than repair? Yes, that might work--a new substrate would be a much more resilient foundation to work with …” He lifted his helm, optics flickering as delayed interaction protocols filtered to the forefront. “Ill-timed? Why would you--oh. No, not at all.” He gave them both a serene smile. “While I certainly would not have wished for Memory-keeper Laserbeak’s misfortune, I am glad you were able to come. This new spark, I feel, will be very special.” He touched his chestplates gently, optics glowing. “And I would be honored, Soundwave, to have you and your cohort present to welcome him into the world.”

Laserbeak could feel the surprise and gratification echoing in his Master’s field as Soundwave straightened, his helm lifting. Soundwave had still been under Recast’s care when Crosswise and Motif had been sparked, of course. However, he had still been very much a mechling at the time, too young and too caught up in his own obsessions to be allowed to witness that most delicate moment of creation--the implantation of a newly-spun spark into a waiting protometal core. Soundwave inclined his helm respectfully, even as he took care not to jostle the symbiont still cradled against his side.

“Soundwave: is honored. Our cohort, humbly accepts your offer, creator.”

Recast’s faceplates spread in pleasure. He bent to study the segment of plating again, optics whirring faintly as he cycled up several different lenses in sequence. “Very good. That gives us enough time, then, to start seeing about all of you.” The creator-mech paused. “And,” he added, “to find you replacements to wear while you wait. Let’s see what we have here....” That last seemed to be directed to Laserbeak, and the symbiont cocked his head, glancing up at his young Master.

 _//My repairs may require some time,//_ the symbiont said, doubly embarrassed at having permitted himself to become injured so badly -- a sparkling’s mistake! -- and at keeping Soundwave from other pursuits for so long.

The big carrier lifted his free hand, passed a finger lightly along the flat side of Laserbeak’s jaw. _//Laserbeak’s welfare, never an inconvenience,//_ he told the flightframe, his glyphs implacably certain. _//Soundwave: will ensure you have the time you need to heal.//_

 

\---

 

After a few more joor of prodding and murmuring, Recast sent Laserbeak and Soundwave away. The flightframe’s wounds were covered, at least, but the temporary parts itched strangely, and Laserbeak stayed firmly ensconced on Soundwave’s shoulder, unwilling to chance flying unless necessary. Ravage met them just outside the workshop, and then paced solemnly beside, while Soundwave explored the grounds of his creator’s compound once more. Soundwave’s chambers were just the same as they’d been ten vorn ago -- the two simple rooms felt both oddly small and wonderfully comfortable. The crystal at the center of the compound had changed in its own slow way, green malachite now rimming lenticular quartzite flakes. The tile in the solvent baths had been replaced sometime in the last few vorn -- Soundwave seated himself there for a time, Laserbeak curled in his lap and Ravage by his side, all of them enjoying the rising mists that dissolved dust and grease and swept away fine contaminating particulates.

And then there was the solar basking chamber. The slate roof had been replaced with a simple energy shield, and several dividing walls had been removed, leaving a large open space. Reflectors and solar nanites captured all the light falling on one wing of the compound, and focussed it here, in slowly-shifting rays of brilliant warmth. Crosswise was still there, watching Soundwave’s cohort cavort through the shafts of light. Sundor glowed nearly incandescent, phoenix-bright as he tussled with Buzzsaw, Raindance, and Motif, shielding nanites at full glorious power. Here too, Soundwave lingered in one of the rays, letting Laserbeak spread his flightplates as well as he could to bask for a while.

From his commanding perch atop Crosswise’s helm, Ratbat stretched his tiny jaws in a lazy yawn. The young carrier seemed terrified lest he move and unseat the little symbiont. He looked to Soundwave pleadingly.

“Query: datacable installation status?” Soundwave asked him, amused. But he made no move to order Ratbat from his new perch, seemingly unconcerned that his youngest symbiont had decided to lounge upon another carrier.

“Cables? Oh, I--uh, I’ve had two secondary pairs for a couple of vorn now. And Recast just installed my first primary pair a half vorn ago,” Crosswise stammered, obviously not expecting the question. He straightened a little under Soundwave’s regard; Ratbat made a disgruntled noise as his perch shifted underneath him. Crosswise froze awkwardly. “But they’re fully functional,” he hastened to assure the older carrier. “I’m just not used to working with them in tandem with my secondaries yet.”

Soundwave nodded. As far as he knew, Recast intended for Crosswise to incorporate only the standard spread of datacables, without all the extras that Soundwave had required. All things considered, the young carrier was proceeding quite normally in his development, and Laserbeak judged that there was little risk of overloading Crosswise with Ravage’s memory. Still, Soundwave would have to be mindful of the transfer rate, and perhaps work with the bladeframe to pare down the edges of the data if needed; depending on Crosswise’s ability to receive, full sensory immersion might prove to be too overwhelming for such a young mech.

Soundwave glanced downward, to his lounging First. _//Query: Ravage, ready to perform memory-transfer?//_ If the bladeframe did not think Crosswise ready, or otherwise not worthy of receiving that memory, Soundwave knew Ravage would tell him so.

Ravage lifted his head, but otherwise did not move from his lazy sprawl. _//I am ready--and so is he, I think. Crosswise has informed me that he and Motif have practiced minor memory shares, of simple things that they have done together. That will help him.//_

There seemed to be little reason to delay. Soundwave returned his attention to Crosswise. “Templar Soundwave, stands ready to fulfill Memory-keeper Ravage’s promise to you,” he said formally. “Query: Crosswise, ready to receive this memory?”

It was impossible for the younger carrier to straighten any further--still, that did not stop Crosswise from trying. “Now?” he asked reflexively, his vocalizer squeaking a little before he could stifle it. “Uhm. I mean--” He glanced between them both. “I am ready, Templar, and I am honored.” He dipped his helm, spreading taloned hands in a clumsy approximation of a carrier’s bow; this time Ratbat did slide completely off his chosen perch, catching himself with one set of sharp little wingclaws.

“Hey!” Ratbat huffed, glaring at all of them impartially as he scrambled for purchase, free wing flailing and stubby little pedes dangling over Crosswise’s shocked optics. Soundwave met Ratbat’s indignation with a level look, and the glideframe subsided. Grumbling to himself, Ratbat ignored Crosswise’s lifted hands and launched himself into the air instead, heading for a nearby ledge. A wall-perch might not have the same cachet as a carrier’s helm, but at least it didn’t go sliding out from underneath you!

Unperturbed, Soundwave uncoiled one pair of primaries, indicating Crosswise to do the same. Ravage levered himself upwards to a seated position, and obediently bowed his head to the two carriers, the razored armor covering the nape of his neck shifting aside to bare the port concealed there. Soundwave reached outward to Crosswise, choosing to link up with the young carrier first. If there were any problems with the linkup, he wanted to ensure they were handled before Soundwave forged the connection past Ravage’s firewalls.

Crosswise hesitated, then reached out with his rightmost primary, allowing the multi-tooled tip to unfold, claspers adjusting instinctively as Soundwave locked in, allowing his cilia to extend and make that first lightning-spark of connection. Crosswise’s frame jerked in reaction; Soundwave held fast through that reflexive flinch, sending soothing pulses through the interface. Then he politely pinged for access, sending an ID-packet and protocols to the younger carrier’s firewalls. It was an extra step, designed to reassure an inexperienced chronicler -- especially one who had never before had to forge a connection between two competing sets of firewalls. But it worked as intended; Soundwave could feel Crosswise relax as his systems belatedly picked up on the familiar algorithms and registered Soundwave’s identity, and the spark-patterning that betokened Recast’s work.

The young carrier relaxed by degrees, more of his cilia twining Soundwave’s, the place where their datacables met crackling with excess charge. Crosswise had certainly worked with terminals before, but clearly not with the firewalls and protocols powered by a fully sentient, adult mech, to judge by his shocked expression. Soundwave kept the process slow -- handshake protocols first, with plenty of time for Crosswise to examine each relay, letting the dataconduits snap into place one by one. _//Good,//_ Soundwave stated once the link had fully stabilized, letting the younger carrier feel his approbation. Then he reached down to twine his other uncoiled primary into Ravage’s waiting port, locking the connection into place.

Crosswise watched avidly as Soundwave completed the linkage. Expecting to receive one transferred packet at a time, Crosswise blinked as Soundwave issued the protocols that invited him to use the other carrier as a bridge instead, to stretch himself across the elder carrier’s information highway. “What--” Crosswise started, and then gasped a trembling vent as Soundwave guided his awareness close against Ravage’s.

Almost shivering with eagerness, torn between awe and elation, Crosswise looked between Soundwave and the bladeframe, even as he felt his way carefully over the surface of a second set of firewalls. And he, Crosswise, was being allowed to -- and with Ravage! -- but. _//Nothing is happeni...?//_ he started, confused. When he’d linked with Motif, he’d felt the memories spreading around him, like slipping into a warm solvent bathing pool. Now, there was only Soundwave.... and the darkness of these firewalls before him, a curtain, a stygian seething.

On Soundwave’s shoulder, Laserbeak settled in to wait. Ravage shifted slightly -- and then Laserbeak blinked as Soundwave proffered a secondary datacable, offering. The flightframe cocked his head, interested and pleased. He’d rarely experienced a memory transfer from the carrier’s side, and he’d certainly never witnessed one carrier shepherd another through a transfer such as this. Intrigued by the possibility of unique and rare new experience, he bared his own dataport, and laid his long neck across the cable’s sheath as Soundwave’s cilia twined comfortably within him. Sensation over Soundwave’s link was wonderfully dense, information-packed, a torrent of data for the recording.

Submerging himself in the experience, Laserbeak felt Crosswise’s jittery eagerness, Ravage’s abiding and welcoming presence, and Soundwave’s quiet proficiency as the carrier acted as conduit and connection. He felt the moment when Soundwave carefully parted Ravage’s firewalls, a twin to the big carrier’s own, guiding the connection deeper. And he felt Crosswise seize in blind panic as he felt the abyss drop away under him.

Soundwave silenced confused coding and clipped frightened strings short, enforcing calm and keeping the young carrier from doing himself or the symbiont any damage. _//This is... what is this?//_ Crosswise asked, glyphs sketchy and wavering, awed. His awareness, twined with Soundwave’s, hung quietly at last in that unending void, a well that had no discernible end.

What could a carrier say to such a query? A symbiont was history and antiquity, was a carrier’s sacred inheritance -- was legacy made metal. _//This, is Ravage,//_ said Soundwave, amused.

And the crystal lattice of memory spiraled up, and enfolded them.


	5. Chapter 5

There was a moment of disorientation, the familiar sensation of falling--

\--and then the world exploded into light and fire.

Ravage ran, a quicksilver and ebony flash of blades that twisted between explosions, leaped over obstacles. Battle-instinct overrode thought, survival imperatives taking over. Bladeframes were formidable mecha, well-armed and armored and adept in combat--for symbionts. But no symbiont was armored enough to survive a battle such as this, surrounded by the audial-shattering clash of tankframes against alien warriors, the roar of cannon-fire and the descending scream of missiles. Only speed would serve him now; and so he ran, darting to the rear even as frontliners charged forward, roaring with fury.

To be sure, this was not the first time Ravage had found himself in the midst of battle--nor was it likely to be the last. But the sheer scale of this attack had been unexpected, unprecedented. The world they were on was barely even a planetoid, a wandering moon with delusions of grandeur and little enough of interest. It didn’t even have a settlement, much less any kind of established military base, just a mid-sized archeological and xenosciences research station, established just a few vorn previously. The only reason this detachment of warframes -- and its embedded Chronicler cohort -- had even been there was due to a routine patrol sweep. 

Ravage had been looking forward to learning what the researchers had discovered, even if several of the warframes had regarded the whole endeavor as a waste of time and energon. Which meant, of course, that an entire *battalion* of Rock Lords had decided to show up to bomb all their afts back to the first Golden Age, because as every warframe knew, that’s what happened when you said stupid slag like that.

The research station had been obliterated in that first, unexpected attack, and despite their best attempts, they’d lost nearly a third of the research mecha in residence. There simply hadn’t been enough time to evacuate, and far too little cover for those caught out in the open. Unable to make it back to the shuttles, warframes and civilians alike had been pushed back, until they had been pushed into a nearby canyon to make their stand. The high, twisting walls of the canyon--glossy, razored volcanic stone, almost a filum in height--bottlenecked their attackers, allowing the beleaguered Cybertronian forces to regroup and dig in. But they were still outgunned, outnumbered -- and Ravage’s Master, and his cohort, were trapped right along with the rest.

_//Master!//_ he called, using their bond to try and punch through the interference caused by jamming-signals and radiation load in the thin atmosphere. _//The tankframes are falling back--where are you?//_

Ultrasonic’s reply was prompt, at least, though that was about all Ravage could say for it. _//...*sszst* -- position too exposed.... two more... *crack* trying... Quartex... at peace for megavorn! Why-- *psksst* ...access to the ship.... copy?//_

Ravage hissed in aggravation. Tensors coiled and released as he vaulted the yawning maw of a chasm, rock splintering beneath his pedes, chunks of rubble the size of cityformers tumbling down into the abyss. In the cold reaches of space, only a handful of species could match the speed of Cybertronian Seekers, or the firepower of a Cybertronian warship. But there was no room for a shuttle to land in the jagged canyon, and no way to call down orbital bombardment with the Rock Lords so close. And while few alien races were much of a threat to Cybertronians in hand-to-hand combat... the Rock Lords were a definite and very dangerous exception to the rule. 

Ultrasonic was right. By this act, the Rock Lords risked breaking the uneasy truce Cybertron had afforded their planet -- such as it was. Quartex was a strange and shattered world, not particularly worth the effort of pacifying, too distant and with little to interest Cybertron. _//They must mean to begin a war,//_ Ravage growled, limbs reaching for just a little more speed as he raced between two onrushing frontliners, sensory spines flinching as a jagged hunk of hurled stone smashed into the mech to Ravage’s right. A war between Cybertron and the Rock Lords would be a short one. But that would not save Ravage or his cohort--or any of the other mecha marooned on this tiny world, for that matter.

The reply was more garbled than before. _//...something... want it enough to.... *Psssht* --ch station?//_

Ravage flung himself into a turn so tight the metal of his body groaned. Caught up in the memory, the others felt the strength, the strain in the maneuver, the shared memory-file carrying every sensation of the experience, every breath of sulphur atmosphere and catch of talons as Ravage ran. A vast pillar of stone thundered down; Ravage darted to the side, taloned pedes finding sure purchase amid showers of sand and gravel. Ahead, a vast ponderous shadow blotted out the dust-filtered light. Mech-shaped but impossibly huge, the creature hefted a craggy axe high, blotting out the sun, then swept it downwards with the inexorable force of a landslide. The frontliners who rushed in seemed like sparklings in comparison, dodging about massive pedes and firing upwards as they covered the tankframes’ retreat. The Rock Lord shrugged off their fire, ignoring the boulders blasted free of its mass as if they were of no consequence. Chunks of living stone fell like meteors, smashing through mecha that had been too slow to dodge, scattering Cybertronians like glitchmice. 

Ravage leaped atop an offlined tankframe’s mangled chassis, using it as a launching point to a nearby crumbling ledge. From there he dug talons into a nearby ridgeline, bounding off of it to the nearest Rock Lord, racing up a reaching hand the size of a habitation unit -- and *jumped.* 

For a single long instant, the airborne bladeframe had an uninterrupted view of the entire battlefield -- the plain, where even the frontliners were giving ground; the mouth of the canyon, through which the tankframes retreated, pursued by the graceless thundering creatures of living stone. And the station ruins, where two more Rock Lords picked through the sundered remains of rooms and delicate equipment. Ravage twisted sideways in midair, and kicked off against a chunk of falling stone bigger than himself, deflecting his trajectory. Claws scrabbling, he landed in a liquid flow of blades, and darted away through the dust and smoke and fire. _//They are searching the ruins for something, Master,//_ he called over the bond, along with a wordless sense of affirmation and the image he’d caught of the valley which had once housed the station. Swift as thought, Ravage raced between the pillar-like stone pedes of another Rock Lord, dodging a lethal hail of stray Cybertronian ordnance. 

_//--*frzztkchlt*--idea what--*skkrt!*--ooking for?//_

_//I am not yet sure,//_ Ravage admitted. His course had taken him from the midst of the fray to the edges of this shattered battlefield, and after an astrosecond’s consideration, he kept running, hooking talons into stone and climbing higher, slipping into the shadows and the battle-haze. Away from where the warframes were fighting--and dying--and further away from his cohort. But as Ultrasonic was fond of saying, knowledge was power. And right now, they could use any scrap of leverage they could get.

There was no way to approach the ruins of the station--the distance was too great, and with the bulk of the invading Rock Lord forces between, it would take too long. But Ravage’s optics, while perhaps not as finely tuned as a flightframe’s, were still keen enough to serve, assuming he could find a vantage point that didn’t also leave him exposed to enemy fire. 

Tucking his field in tight, he suppressed as many of his normal system functions as possible, damping down on the tiny internal noises created by his frame. In the din of battle, Ravage had little trouble moving silently; now he became a wraith, just another wisp of silver-black smoke, eddying with the haze from one crevice, one shadow to the next. He climbed, taking care never to be silhouetted against the sky, even as stray blasts and the roars of angry Rock Lords reverberated against his plating. 

Finally, he found a crevice that allowed him to look downward, across the plane to the smoking rubble that once had been the station. There were only two--no, three Rock Lords there now, indistinguishable from the others. Ravage narrowed his optics, calipers whirring as he focused down on the distant figures. The Rock Lords moved among the rubble, pulling melted walls apart, tossing aside beams and shattered equipment--and sometimes, the shattered remains of a dead mech--with ponderous ease. For all their strength, however, their movements were slow, deliberate. It was obvious they were not just engaging in destruction for destruction’s sake, but were instead sifting methodically through the debris. Though Ravage still could not understand why. There was nothing left of value in the research station, beyond perhaps some rare earths, a few surviving bits of equipment. Certainly nothing worth the firepower the Rock Lords had used to obtain them!

Then one of the Rock Lords froze. Bent over, it used blunt, massive hands to shovel away the surrounding debris, working frantically to free its prize--then, cradling it, the creature rocked back and forth, folding down upon itself as it lifted the object in two cupped hands. From this distance, it was impossible to hear their vocalizations--but the creature’s jagged maw was open, and the other Rock Lords responded as if to some alarm call or cry.

The Rock Lord’s prize came into view, glimpsed upon that broad craggy palm, and Ravage flattened his audials. It was … a geode. A broken geode, at that, the stony outer shell cracked neatly into sections to reveal the shimmering crystal within. A pretty trinket for a geologist to study, perhaps, but hardly precious. Something like that would not even buy a cube of energon on Cybertron, much less be worth starting a war over!

The air was clearer here, thinner, and comms reached further. Ravage packaged the image before him, paring it down to its barest essentials, then sent it over the cohort channel, setting the file to loop in the hopes that enough fragments might get through to render a cohesive picture. _//They seem to be searching for quartzite geodes.//_

The rattle of heavy arms filtered over Ravage’s comm -- at the distant mouth of the snaking canyon, two Rock Lords were clawing at the opening, raking massive furrows. _//...enough to land *ssskrrrt* ...or something to draw them *crackhiss* -ombardment.//_

Ravage snarled, daggered fangs glinting. Could the Rock Lords truly be lured or led away in pursuit of such a miserable little bauble as that? Optics narrowed, Ravage watched the other two Rock Lords cluster around the one who had found the geode. One of them reached out as if to touch, delicately, but withdrew with ponderous slowness before making contact. Its bulbous, rocky head-like extrusion seemed to bow. 

Perhaps it might work, after all. It was a thin wire on which to hang all their sparks, but what choice did he have? Ravage watched a moment longer, committing the shape and size of the geode carefully to his infallible memory. Then he turned his optics on the rest of the battlefield.

****

The two frontliners had made it to the edge of the battlefield, but gravel and chunks of rock still showered down around them, pinging off plating and wedging into armor seams. One arm crumpled into uselessness and gold and blue armor gouged beyond recognition, Punch half-supported the other frontliner, whose weapons mounts were crushed and mangled. Neither mech was inoperative, but they were of no further use to the battle. They’d both recover -- given the attentions of a medic... but it was looking increasingly unlikely that the medics would survive long enough to see to the wounded. 

They watched with unaccustomed helplessness as a Rock Lord plunged its long, stony arm into the canyon, clawing at the mecha sheltering within, while another of the creatures ponderously climbed atop the plateau to reach down from above. “Frag this,” said Chase, orange fingers tightening on his battle brother’s remaining arm, trying to steady himself. “There ain’t no way -- frag. Eight of ‘em, and us without air support. We gotta fragging do something. Anything. That’s our unit back in there!”

“Like what?” Punch snarled, even as he shifted his weight, keeping Chase from falling. “Got nothing left to fire, and ain’t neither of us gonna be throwing these.” The blue and gold mech still wore a string of fission grenades, though they’d be of little use without a launcher to fire them, or undamaged arms to throw them. “Not that they’ve done us much good, anyway.” 

A deliberate growl stopped them both in their tracks, and a sliver of shadow seemed to detach itself from the lee of a fallen boulder, ghosting through the billowing dust. Ravage’s razored maw parted. 

“Both of you have holoemitters,” the bladeframe rumbled, and the two frontliners exchanged glances. The devices weren’t quite legal for their rank, but why the frag would the Pit-bedamned chronicler be worried about a thing like that at a time like this? 

“Which of you,” said Ravage, “can still transform?” 

“I can,” Chase said slowly, armor bristling a little in suspicion. “Why?”

“Because we need to lure these creatures away from the canyon, and I cannot run fast enough,” Ravage said. “These--” and he tight-beamed the image of the geode to both frontliners, “--are what they’re looking for.”

“A fraggin’ rock? Why?” Punch said. “It doesn’t even have any energon in it.”

“Irrelevant. All we need to know is that they want it, and badly.” The bladeframe’s narrow scarlet stare swept them both. “Chase will transform. Punch and I will ride, and make it seem as if we’re carrying one of these away from the battlefield. With luck, we will be able to draw enough of them away from the canyon to give the shuttles and airframes an opening. Understood?”

“Wait--you want *all* of those fraggers chasing us?” Even a frontliner’s well-practiced bravado couldn’t help but falter at that, and Chase shook his helm, stepping backwards. Punch growled a curse as the movement pulled them both off balance, and the two mecha staggered drunkenly for a moment before righting themselves. “No way,” Chase growled. “What do you know anyway? You’re not a dux--you’re not even a warframe! Just ‘cause we have our tailpipes in a crack--”

“Yes. You do,” Ravage said impatiently, tail lashing. “You wish to die? Then lie down here and wait to be stepped on. But if you wish to *do* something to make your death matter--and perhaps save what remains of your unit--then you will do this.” He tilted his head. “Decide now.”

The two frontliners looked at each other, obviously privately conferring. Then--slowly, reluctantly, they nodded. “All right,” Punch said. “We’ll do it. But if you’re wrong, I’m tossin’ your spikey aft off a cliff and lettin’ one of those slaggers chew on you.” 

Ravage didn’t dignify that threat with an answer. He simply waited, watching impatiently as Chase folded himself down awkwardly into his alt. Punch staggered his way over, wedging himself into the carry-space of the scarred hovercar’s chassis. Leaping swiftly into Chase’s covered cargo pod, Ravage hung his head out the window. 

“Generate the image,” he ordered them both. “Act like you’re holding it--and drive!”

****

They drove.

Simulating the pieces as Ravage had seen them proved difficult and power-consumptive, but generating the image of an intact geode was relatively easy. The softlight hologram flickered into existence, Punch doing his best over the jolting run to wrap his remaining arm around the thing, an irregular and stony quartzite-glittering sphere almost two mechanometers tall. Waist high to a Cybertronian, the illusion would have fit like a marble in a Rock Lord’s palm, more or less.

Ravage didn’t intend to let one of the creatures get near enough to measure for sure. Heavily loaded, Chase’s battered chassis groaned as he raced over the broken terrain, gliding just above jagged chunks of broken stone, hanging for terrible long moments over deep-cracked chasms before the antigravs found purchase on the other side. _//This had fragging better wor--//_ “--kwh-aaaah!”

The shocked sound chirped from his vocalizer as a rumble passed through the ground below, a vast percussive vibration that shook the pocked moonrock like the planetoid surface was liquid. The sound was so low-pitched it set every strut of them to vibrating, humming like struck tuning forks. 

“Frag,” whispered Punch, looking up... and up. One of the Rock Lords had swiveled its central mass, bringing the light-sensitive pits on its head-like lump to bear on the racing frontliners. With terrible ponderous slowness, another Rock Lord began to turn, dropping a half-crushed tankframe still dangling in one monstrous hand. Ignoring the ongoing gunfire that still chipped divots from its surface, the first huge, shield-backed Rock Lord lurched into motion.

“We need to attract the attention of all of them,” Ravage growled, claws flexing on Chase’s internals. “Drive closer.”

“You gotta be off your fragging slide rails!” snarled Punch. “If that ain’t tipped ‘em off, nothing’s gonna -- what the frag, Chase?!” Punch grabbed a handhold as they took a sharp turn, the illusionary geode eerily steady and unmoving in his lap. 

“Flash your frontlamps, too,” Ravage ordered, ignoring Punch’s snarling commentary, his optics fixed on the towering Rock Lords. More of them were turning now, halting their destructive rampages. More subsonics rumbled through the ground below, so low Ravage could not pick up the vibrations on his audials, could only feel reverberating in his struts. Rock Lords did not have proper optical sensors, and so it was difficult to tell if the beasts were looking their way, if they’d truly caught the creatures’ attention. 

Cursing, Punch lighted his warning and emergency beacons, blinking them on and off. With a roar like thunder, the Rock Lords began to move. Ponderous at first, each vast pillar-like pede shaking the earth as they fell, and then faster, the Rock Lords advanced, vast axes and stony swords uplifted. They seemed slow, especially compared to the speed a frontliner habitually employed in battle--but they were slow in the way an avalanche was slow, a building, ever quickening wave of living rock that shook the ground underfoot. The Rock Lord atop the canyon slid from its stony perch, unleashing a small slide of razor-edged obsidian; Chase swerved frantically as the ground cracked and shifted underneath him, antigravs struggling to compensate.

_//You wanted their attention, Chronicler--you fraggin’ got it. Now what??//_ he commed frantically as he poured on even more speed. He was a frontliner, slag it, not a tactician. It wasn’t his job to *think*!

“Drive!” Punch ordered, optics wide as he took in the wall of Rock Lords now chasing them. He pressed himself against the bed of Chase’s cargo compartment, as if it would somehow help the other frontliner go faster. “Go go go! Frag, frag, we’re slagged, c’mon you Pit-slagged rustmongers, come and get us, oh frag fraggity frag--”

Ignoring Punch’s panicked litany, Ravage watched the distance close between them and their pursuers with narrowed optics. Their gambit had worked even better than he’d dared to hope--nearly every Rock Lord had broken off their assault upon the canyon in order to pursue them instead. Which once again begged the question--why? What made these geodes so precious to them, that they’d go to such lengths? 

But they had no time to look for answers. “Head for the plains, away from the canyons. You’ll be able to hit your top speed there, and outmaneuver them,” he ordered Chase. The frontliner obeyed blindly, sweeping around in a joint-wrenching turn as the nearest Rock Lord made a sweeping grab for them, basaltic finger-stumps cutting through the air above their helms. A pede like one of Iacon’s lesser towers came down in front of them, blasting chunks of rock and dust, and Chase swerved madly as that hand reached for them again. A wall rose up before them -- only knee-high to a Rock Lord, but far taller than a frontliner could manage on antigravs; if the Rock Lord succeeded in boxing them in.... 

Like a streak of living lightning, Ravage launched himself from the frontliner’s cargo pod, twisting midair, catching at the edge of Punch’s flailing arm with murderously sharp talons. The frontliner had time for a single shocked cry before Ravage’s jaws closed down... on the web of fission grenades strung across his chassis. A powerful, well-practiced yank freed the buckle, and Ravage leaped skyward. _//Keep driving!//_ he ordered, claws finding purchase on the back of a massive, reaching hand, teeth clenched around the dangling chain of explosives. A thousand chunks of rock shifted under him, a living landslide. Flexures bunching, Ravage coaxed every iota of agility from his frame, scrabbling up, vaulting sideways as the creature swatted at him like a mech would a twitchfly. Claws spread like grappling hooks, Ravage raced up the Rock Lord’s mountainous body, running upside down, leaping fissures in the thing’s surface that gaped like arroyos, dodging, climbing as fast as thought. The Rock Lord tottered, its attention momentarily distracted from the fleeing frontliners.

A vast descending palm nearly caught him, the shockwave of air as the creature slapped at itself blasting Ravage free of the Rock Lord’s shoulder for a single horrifying instant -- and then his claws caught rock, just at the juncture of shell and lumpish head. Good enough, Ravage thought, and released the bandolier just long enough to drive a long fang through the pull-ring of one of the grenades and wrench, quickly blurting a line of code to arm the throw-weapons. Then he let the entire string drop into the vast crevasse between the thing’s back and its shell. 

Then he ran. 

Ravage had nearly reached the elbow-like joint of the Rock Lord’s reaching arm when the beast stumbled, howling at a pitch that drowned out the muffled boom of internal explosions. Offlining his audials, Ravage leaped in great gravity-fuelled strides, only trying to control his fall as the creature stumbled. He was still twenty mechanometers from the fissured ground when he lost his tenuous grip on tumbling stone and fell. 

The world tumbled over, a mad twisting dance as Ravage fought to right himself and spread his limbs. A glimpse of orange and blue -- and then Ravage hit the ground in a rolling tangle, struts creaking and backstruts flexing so hard it felt like one had popped from alignment. No time to catch his bearings -- Ravage lurched into a run, stretching cramping limbs for all the speed he could muster as he raced away from the howling Rock Lord slowly collapsing behind him. The shockwave when its mountainous torso hit the ground picked Ravage up, propelled him forward like he was nothing more than a puff of organic down, flinging him directly into Chase’s panicked path. 

It was everything Ravage could do simply to twist his legs under him once more, to gain control over his tumbling slide, to pour on a last few strides of speed and leap atop the frontliner’s chassis. 

“You -- you fragging--” Punch gaped at him.

_//I fragging earned us half a klik, no more,//_ Ravage snarled, eyeing the rest of the oncoming Rock Lords. His primary tank pinged near empty, after the exertion of the last few joor. Primus -- even the one that had fallen was getting back up, very slowly levering itself up from its sprawl, though the blast and the fall had cost it great hunks of its stony substance. _//Get your drivetrain in gear and *move!*//_

Chase moved. 

Turning away from the entrapping walls and ledges, engine whining to redline, Chase raced for the edge of the plateau and the smooth salt expanse of an ancient and long-dead sea, far below. From the top of the cliff, the descent seemed steeper than it had on the maps, a rugged, jagged tumble of scree and drop-offs. Every massive step of the pursuing Rock Lords shuddered through the ground beneath them -- there was no time to pick a careful path down. _//Go!//_ hissed Ravage.

Chase drove straight down the mountainside, rattling over uneven ground, banging off of boulders. Then, in desperation, he launched himself off a ledge and into open air, clearing the last gap and landing in a metal-jarring crash and a cloud of dust.

The leap and Ravage’s gambit had gained them some small amount of distance--and Chase used it for all he was worth. Ravage could hear the frontliner’s engines straining, the antigravs whining and sputtering. A damaged component exploded in a shower of sparks and a burst of flame, and Chase snarled, his speed dropping despite his best efforts. “No, fraggin--c’mon, reroute, let’s go!” he snarled, obviously more at his own damage-control systems than either of his erstwhile passengers. His engine sputtered--they shot forward, then slowed again. “Slag!”

The Rock Lords sifting through the rubble of the research station had noticed the commotion. Ravage could see them turning, starting to lumber in their direction. And their original pursuers had made it down the cliff by now, sliding down in an thunderous crash of rock and plumes of dust. But beyond them--beyond them, Ravage could make out the outlines of the first shuttles, descending fast.

“We need to keep them occupied a little longer,” he told Chase roughly, clinging with claws extended to the frontliner’s domed chassis. His foreleg twinged badly, cables snapped when he fell -- Ravage quashed the redflagged coding ruthlessly. “The shuttles are coming in--once the civilians are clear, the battleship will be able to launch missiles and airframes, and pound them back into the ground.” It wouldn’t take long to evac the few remaining scientists. Especially when the warframes around them were more than willing to pitch the civilians bodily inside if they didn’t move fast enough.

“You--make that sound--so easy!” Chase retorted, his vocalizer cutting in and out with blurts of static as he juggled damaged systems and redlining internals. His vents were blown wide, and Ravage could hear auxiliary systems whining at a fever pitch to try and push out excess heat--but despite the frontliner’s best efforts, he couldn’t maintain his speed. Instead they jinked and weaved across the rocky plain, pursued by a thundering wave of Rock Lords, until the sky seemed to be full of hundreds of mechanotons of living stone, all crushing closer, pedes slamming into the earth with a thunderous, audial-splitting roar--

\--and then an antigrav blew, a fender dipped--and Chase gave a hoarse, hopeless cry of rage as he fell into an unseen gully, plowing his front end into the rock-strewn dirt with the crunch of buckling metal. Punch, hanging on for all he was worth, managed to stay onboard. Ravage, smaller and lighter and without grasping digits, was flung free. He ducked, rolling with the momentum, and came up crouched on his pedes, talons splayed and ready. 

And froze. For all around them, surrounding them, were the Rock Lords, cutting off any possibility of escape. It was impossible to tell how many for sure; all Ravage could see were those massive battle-axes, the craggy swords five times taller than a mech, all of them lifted high, poised and ready to smash the Cybertronians into splintered metal.

For a long, endless nanoklik, the Rock Lords didn’t move. Then one of them took an earthshaking step forward, bent down, and extended an open palm. The gesture was unmistakably a command. _Give it to me._ But it was also an oddly vulnerable one. 

The Rock Lords, Ravage realized, did not wish risking damaging the illusory geode. Which, on the one hand, was likely the only reason they were still alive. On the other--they couldn’t exactly hand over a geode they didn’t have. And once the Rock Lords knew that ….

_//Maintain the holoprojection,//_ Ravage hissed, backing up one limping, trembling step at a time, optics fixed on the huge Rock Lord before him. _//...and hold it hostage.//_

_//...Hold *what* hostage?//_ Punch demanded groggily, doing his best to straighten. His remaining functional arm had been partially crushed in the crash. Tiny gears and internal mechanisms tumbled from battered joints as he jerked his wrist from between two buckled segments of Chase’s plating. The illusionary geode rapidly flickered for a moment, then solidified once more. 

The Rock Lord’s massive hand moved as if to reach over Ravage and pluck the geode from the wreckage of the frontliners. _//Threaten the rock, soldier!//_

_//Fragging... piece of... useless fragging scrap... fragging scraplet fragger!//_ Punch hissed, forcing his hand through a semblance of its weapon transformation sequence. The ruin that emerged wouldn’t have been capable of firing a bullet even if someone had manually primed the gun, loaded a round, and set the whole thing on fire. Punch’s arm looked like the unimpressively mangled chunk of twisted metal it was. But the Rock Lord drew back as Punch pressed the warped muzzle to the faintly-wavering surface of the geode. “That’s right, you fraggers! Any closer and this smelted lump gets it!” 

Ravage took a few more steps back, lest one of the Rock Lords think to claw at him. The creatures seemed to be conferring amidst themselves, strange deep rumblings passing through the porous stone underpede. The communication, if that’s what the Rock Lords were engaging in, proceeded at glacial speed -- which suited Ravage quite well. For far behind these massive forms, through the gaps between their towering bodies, Ravage could see the descending shuttles, even if he could not make out the roar of their engines. 

Those shuttles should be bringing enough artillery to sweep clean a large portion of this miserable hunk of rock. But flights kept coming, kept circling skyward and dropping down again. Which meant only one thing. The unit commander had decided to do more than fight the Rock Lords on better terms. 

He intended to sterilize this miserable little space rock -- and everything on it. 

It was a disturbing suspicion, and one he did not share with Punch, who kept up his litany of threats against the illusionary dirtball. “...and then after I’m done fragging it, then I’m gonna pin the pieces up on the wall of the barracks, yeah, like fragging art noo-voh, so don’t fragging move a pebble or I’m taking all you fraggers down....”

_//Ravage!//_ His Master’s comm broke through over the symbiont’s cohort bond, and the big bladeframe scanned the skies above in relief. More shuttlecraft yes, but... also one that hung still, and too low. _//Ravage, we have a beam-lock on you. But we’ll need to be closer,// Ultrasonic stated, calm and strong as ever. //Use the files from the first Rock Lord contact team, and try to clear a space.//_

Ravage snarled silently. He’d not been among the scientific team that first encountered the Rock Lords -- but he had glimpsed their reports at one point. And even if Ultrasonic hadn’t archived the details, Ravage had. The team that had discovered Rock Lords first pacified the creatures with several crates of crunchy rust sticks -- not particularly applicable here -- and then, in attempting to communicate, they’d found that Rock Lords responded to visual representations, but not at all to vocalized words. Reluctantly, every bladed edge of his plating hackled upwards, Ravage slunk forward. The air was heavy, crackling with tension, and he could not help but be acutely aware of how small he was in comparison to the creatures that hovered threateningly on all sides. A single blow was all it would take; one hit, and he would be dead. For a Rock Lord, it would be like squashing a twitchfly. 

But cringing was not in his nature, and would do little to help them escape. Instead, using the side of one forepaw, he scuffed a flattish area in the dust before him. With outspread claws, he raked four pebbles into the center of the cleared area, three clustered together and one a little apart. Then he returned primary optics to the Rock Lords.

The rumbling faded. It was difficult to detect expression on a creature that had no proper electromagnetic field, that had little mobility in face or movement. But the frontmost Rock Lord seemed... contemplative. The creature reached out again, slowly, with a blunt and stony finger the size of an entire minibot. Alert, Ravage retreated another few steps, watching as the Rock Lord poked with almost bizarre delicacy at the small stones. Clumsily, it pushed the three clustered stones away from the fourth, leaving it alone in the center. Then it withdrew its hand.

Studying the Rock Lord, Ravage laid talons on the pebbles which ringed the cleared area, indicating them. Then he raked several of them aside, so that a half-circle around the cleared space was empty of surrounding stones.

The deep vibration started up again. Punch let out a yelp as the Rock Lords to his left began to retreat, circling around behind the others, leaving the downward slope of the gully clear of their towering legs. Ravage’s crouching Rock Lord nudged its massive finger at the original central pebbles, pushing three of the four away impatiently. Its stony digit left an effortless gouge in the soil and rock.

Ravage backed up to stand even with Punch and Chase, who was still sparking fitfully, but beginning to come around, his systems coming online slowly. The injured frontliner was only partially aware, and Ravage couldn’t tell if he was too damaged to transform. If he was, then there was nothing they could do--they would have to leave him behind. _//At what distance can you maintain a holoprojection?//_ he growled at Punch. They'd need to be a good two hundred mechanometers away or more, for the shuttle to dart in with any degree of safety. And even then....

_//Er--whut?//_ Punch broke off his threatening monologue, but never took his optics off the Rock Lords in front of them. _//Ah … a hundred mechanometers, maybe? Never had reason to push it that far, though. Why?//_

_//The Rock Lords are letting us retreat--but only if we leave the geode behind. We have to get far enough for the shuttle tractors to grab us.//_ It was going to be close. The whole plan was flimsy at best, to be honest, but what choice did they have? _//Rouse Chase. Pretend to set the geode on the ground as we all back away--but keep it covered with your armgun until we’re clear.//_ Ravage paused, tail lashing. _//Once you lose coherency on the projection--run like Unicron Himself was after your aft.//_

_//Frag.//_ Punch growled, but did as he was told, slowly clambering out of Chase’s cargo bay, acting as if he cradled the geode projection with his shattered arm. _//I’m really not likin' these plans of yours, Chronicler,//_ he snarled, then kicked the other frontliner ungently in the chassis. “Chase--Chase! Get up and move your slagging aft, or we’re leaving you here ta get squashed.”

The hovercar shifted, jerked. Painfully transforming back into root mode, Chase climbed to his pedes, still dazed and staggering. “I’m--I’m good. I’m here. What’s--”

“No time. We’re retreating,” Ravage growled. “That way--let’s go. Punch, you know the drill.”

They retreated. The holoprojection stayed behind, looking oddly small and innocuous in the circle of mountainous Rock Lords. Ravage and the others moved out of their encirclement as quickly as they could without losing sight of it, Chase and Punch supporting each other as they moved. Ten mechanometers … thirty … fifty … the Rock Lords stirred, shifting slightly, but Punch’s leveled armgun seemed to be holding them at bay. At seventy-five mechanometers, the holoprojection flickered. At ninety-two, it fritzed, blinking in and out of coherency… then, as a rumbling vibration began to build under their pedes, vanished entirely. 

_//Run!!//_ Ravage ordered unnecessarily, sprinting for all he was worth. He pulled ahead of the two running frontliners easily; unable to transform, only the big mechs’ longer strides kept them even close to his speed, and their injuries hampered them far more. Ravage didn’t bother to glance behind. He could hear the pounding roar of the Rock Lords like the rising wave of an earthquake, shaking the very substance of this planet underneath their pedes. Too close--they still were too close, the shuttles would never be able to pull them clear .... 

… and then the sky split open. 

Airframes streaked downwards, launching high-yield missiles down upon their pursuers in a fiery hail of retribution. The ground fell away under Ravage’s reaching talons as he was yanked roughly into the air, caught in the familiar grip of an inertial beam along with the two frontliners--behind the airframes, Ravage belatedly realized, had been the slower, less maneuverable shuttles. The airframes were the diversion; keeping the Rock Lords at bay for a few precious kliks, even as the shuttles peeled away, reeling them upwards at the same time. 

The airframes swarmed the Rock Lords, wheeling around their mountainous bulks like energon bees. The blasts from their missiles blossomed across those stony hides like strange, ephemeral orange-green crystal flowers, flames burning strangely in the sodium-dense atmosphere. All of the Rock Lords were pitted, chunks of them tumbling free as they flailed their weapons, striking one another far more often than the airframes. The moment the shuttle was well out of range, the airframes broke away, dodging ponderous limbs and stony blades as they fought to escape. A vast reaching hand caught an incautious flyer, sweeping him effortlessly from the air, flinging him into a smoke-spiraled tailspin. Turning on a wingtip, one of the shuttles -- a sparked transport, by his agility -- caught the crumpled flyer out of the sky, dragged him close, jetted skyward once more.

Even as the inertia beam drew him up, even as the cargo bay doors behind him opened, Ravage watched. He watched the Rock Lords shake their weapons at the vanishing Cybertronians, saw the heavy scars inflicted on stony hides. He watched as the Rock Lords, rather than heading for their chariot-like interplanetary transports or returning to the smashed research station, crouched side-by-side instead, huge fingers combing through the dust of the gully where the illusionary geode had rested. And he watched, from his vantage several filum above the stony ground, as the first orbital ordinance shot downward, torpedo missiles as large as a Prime, cluster bombs in the kilotons. 

Hands closed on Ravage’s armor, and he jerked hard, fangs bared. “Hey there, cyberkitty, we gotch’y--aaack! Frag!” A battered warframe cursed as Ravage twisted strutlessly in his grasp, hooked talons into a collar fairing, yanked himself free of those impudent talons and climbed straight up the larger mech’s front side and down the back. All in about two astroseconds. “Frag! Fragging chronicler, you gotta be -- I just had that painted! Frag, that hurts.”

The interior of the shuttle was crowded, mecha crouched around every wall and packed into clear spaces, the injured webbed into place. Finding his footing on the unsteady, ever-accelerating decking, Ravage followed the thread of the bond, the siren call of his Master. *There,* silver-white plating, now pocked and scarred. The bladeframe padded over to sit beside Ultrasonic, webbed into place near the other wounded. A battered violet and yellow climbframe -- much like Motif in size -- was pressed tightly to Ultrasonic’s other side, subtly keeping the carrier upright. Ravage curled his heavy tail neatly around his forepaws, and waited.

Dim blue visor brightened. “Ah, my Ravage,” said the carrier, quietly. With effort, he lifted a hand, smoothed it down Ravage’s neck, lingered over the sensitive plates and spines around the symbiont’s face and audials. Ultrasonic gave a soft, rattling laugh, as his talons found an object wedged around Ravage’s largest left fang like some strange body adornment. “You even brought me... a memento.”

The piece of metal came free, clinking into Ultrasonic’s palm. It was the silvery pull-ring from a string of fission grenades.

****

It took Soundwave a few moments to guide Crosswise up from the depths of that memory. The young carrier seemed to want to linger, even once the thread had ended, as if to revel in the thickness of the memories around him. They stirred like a billion mirrored fragments, chained and linked and branched, each flickering with glimpses, echoes of what had once been. 

But at last, Crosswise unshuttered his optics -- and gasped in a harsh vent. He hadn’t been aware, until now, of how hard his quantum drives had been working in their efforts to store... to store all of that. Most of it. Well, some of it, anyway. Crosswise touched his chest awkwardly, unaccustomed to having almost an entire memory node filled in such a short time. “How -- how do you keep it all?” he asked wonderingly, even as he combed through the data, richer and more nuanced than any he’d downloaded. Just with these observations alone, a mech could study cultural standards or the way the Cybertronian language had changed or lost frametype technologies for... for many, many vorns, to say nothing of the Rock Lords. Most mecha had all kinds of pre-processors that sorted the fragments of important sensory data from a background torrent of the trivial -- a symbiont had no such hardware. They discarded nothing; they stored it *all.* 

Motif didn’t yet have all his sensor suites installed and online. But once he did, a transfer from him might be every bit as overwhelming as from Ravage. What would Crosswise do, then? 

And... was that really his proper chonometer reading? “And -- and how do you have time for it all? That was only a couple of joors, and its been six now, here, I mean.” Crosswise’s optics widened. “And did carriers really look like that? So thin, and with such light armor and those funny wide shoulder panels, and--”

Laserbeak could feel the echo as Soundwave sent a final pulse of gratitude to Ravage, then carefully retracting his cilia, coiling datacables expertly back into their housings. Too conscious of his dignity to let it show, Laserbeak nonetheless regretted the loss of contact as his Master unwound the linkages that had bound them all together. Few activities were as pleasurable for a symbiont as sharing new memories, new experiences. It was even better with a carrier to intimately intertwine, to guide and to guard --such a transfer was an encompassing comfort he was loath to give up. But it had to end, for Crosswise’s sake if not their own. Despite his enthusiasm, the mechling simply did not yet have the resources to sustain that kind of data transfer without damage. 

The link to the young carrier was the last to be disconnected, Soundwave unlocking their cables, retracting his cilia smoothly. Caught up in his excitement, Crosswise barely seemed to notice.

“Data retrieval, much faster without full sensory immersion,” Soundwave said in answer to the younger carrier’s questions. “Ravage’s memory, transferred slowly for optimum retention. Bonded carriers, symbionts: develop mutual routines, learn to delimit memory sets for quick transmission and storage. Spark-memory, very extensive; few carriers, capable of processing complex memories without data-loss.” Soundwave, of course, was one of those few, although he did not mention it--most likely in order to keep Crosswise from trying to prove he was just as capable as his older sibling. Recast was unlikely to let the mechling damage himself permanently, but burned-out datacable relays and corrupted memory-nodes were painful, to say the least, and could have long-term consequences if not repaired properly.

Soundwave tilted his helm downward, gazing at the still-wobbly younger carrier. “Query: Crosswise still determined to be a Rock Lord?”

Caught up in the new memory he had been given, reeling under the sheer amount of data he now had at his talon-tips, it took an nanoklik for Crosswise to register the question. “What? I--” He took in the affectionate amusement that rippled Soundwave’s field, Ravage’s narrowed and sidelong look of wry remembrance. “Heh--I think I’d be with Recast for the next megavorn if I wanted to be framed *that* big! No, I think I’ll be happy being just a little smaller.” He grinned, exhaustion warring with exhilaration on his faceplates. “Crystals--I’d almost forgotten about that.” He rubbed his helm, remembering. The young carrier was certainly very different from the impetuous hatchling Laserbeak remembered his previous visit. It was unnerving to think about sometimes; everything could change so much in just a few short vorn. 

“Crosswise: was very determined,” Soundwave remarked, obviously recalling the memory-file for himself. The mandibular mouthparts Soundwave favored were not so expressive as other types of facial plating -- but even still, the corners shifted upwards, just a little.

Crosswise chuckled good-naturedly, stretching his limbs. One of Xyr’s twin suns had set, and the sunroom was cooling now, the shafts of focussed light fewer. Motif and the rest of Soundwave’s cohort were all still here, though, piled under and atop one another on a padded bench, Ratbat snuffling as he recharged on top. Several thin personal transfer cables snaked throughout the pile. “I was so sure I was going to be one. Had it all worked out -- Motif and I, we had this plan to run away together and build this magnificent Rock Lord fortress... on Cybertron, I think. Or up the hill from here, whichever worked out better. Motif was going to name it ‘The Castle of Both Doom and Peril in Equal Proportion.’ I’d downloaded all those old Talecraft stories, you see, everything I could find or order anywhere about the Rock L--” Crosswise’s vocalizer stuttered. 

Ravage had been right. The Rock Lords hadn’t worn crystals, but they *had* carried them -- not whole decorative ones like the crystals in Recast’s compound, but rather the shattered pieces of that huge, spherical geode. Not just carried, no -- cradled, treasured. Crosswise gasped. “That -- was that a … a *seedstone*?” The old holopics he’d seen of the things had been worn and of poor resolution, and hadn’t really given a sense of scale. 

Ravage inclined his head in a nod. “Yes,” he said evenly, acknowledging the memory as a cornerstone of history. “Though that discovery was not made until Cybertron and Quartex had been at war for over a vorn.” Cybertron’s -- and the Lord Protector Adamant’s -- retaliation had been swift; Quartex had responded in kind, and the hostilities had escalated far faster than anyone could quell. 

“Proper analysis, derailed by politics and personal vendettas,” Soundwave said evenly. This too was a part of history he had studied, long after Laserbeak and Ravage had lived it. 

Once, it had been believed that Cybertron was the center of the universe; the world of Primus and the Allspark, the shining light from which everything derived. As a result, Cybertronians tended towards arrogance and aggression both. An attack on Cybertronian territory, the deaths of the civilian mecha that warframes had been coded to protect; it took very little to spark a warframe’s battle-lust, and rouse Cybertron’s military might. And the result … well, the outcome rarely turned out well for the alien species in question. 

It was not something most Cybertronians wanted to recall: that they had been responsible for the annihilation of entire worlds. Which, in Laserbeak’s estimation, made such things all the more important to remember.

Only later, after terrible casualties and destruction, had anyone thought to examine the symbionts’ data, to find out just what made those geodes so precious. And when the truth had been discovered … “Solus Prime ordered a cease-fire, once the truth was known,” Laserbeak said quietly. “But we’d already done a great deal of damage to the Rock Lords’ outposts and to Quartex, and perhaps even more by destroying their seedstones.”

“You … we … we threatened their sparklings?” Crosswise breathed, horrified as the pieces clicked into place. “The researchers--they’d cut one apart--no wonder the Rock Lords were mad!”

“Developmental cycles, not analogous,” Soundwave corrected him. “Seedstones, similar to pouched protometal frames. Rock Lord nymphs, closer to sparklings.” He looked soberly down at the young carrier, his earlier amusement fading away. “Rock Lord reaction to the destruction of either; equivalent.” 

Crosswise hunched his shoulders, obviously made uncomfortable by that thought. Pouched hatchlings -- little more than growing lumps of protometal and a handful of primitive surface structures -- were not even as sentient or capable as technimals, but that did not make them any less precious. Protometal took time and resources to bud, and a long time to incubate before it could bear a spark. Or survive outside strictly controlled conditions, for that matter. If someone blundered in and broke open Recast’s newest creations, sparked yet or not... Crosswise would likely react with that same deep-coded rage, Laserbeak knew, just as any other Cybertronian would. 

But ... unsparked protometal was not yet a sparkling, wasn’t a mech. Crosswise shook his helm. “I... guess I see. But there are so few of them now, I just... it seems like such a... a waste. I mean...” he paused, looked down at his clasped talons, obviously unwilling to say anything against a symbiont, most especially one like Ravage! Having shared the same memory, however, they all knew that Ravage had thought the Rock Lords’ obsession strange, even at the time. If the bladeframe had said something... would it have made a difference?

Laserbeak cocked his head. “It was a waste. But it is far easier to see such things in hindsight, as most mecha know well.” Due to his age and the depth of his experience, Ravage was fairly talented at spotting incongruous data and flagging items for his carrier’s review, even if he didn’t have the processor power to run comparisons himself. Some symbionts were better, some worse. Ratbat... despite his shallow memory well, Ratbat could draw spark-level comparisons better than any symbiont Laserbeak had ever met. But no symbiont, no matter how practiced or talented, could process data and pick out the important threads like a conscientious carrier. 

Ravage bowed his neck a little as Soundwave’s talons traced idly over his plating, finding joints and thinner places, stroking there. “You noticed another difference, Crosswise. Modern carriers have more hardware, and thousands of times more computational power than Ultrasonic. But yes, I did think the Rock Lords’ behavior strange.”

“Symbiont conjectures and suspicions, not always fruitful lines of inquiry, yet always worth further study,” said Soundwave, talon-tips scritching with the firm pressure that Ravage liked best. “Crosswise: will learn this in the vorn to come -- to isolate relevant portions of a memory, to run comparisons against similar memory-files, published studies, raw data compilations.” Most of those sources were difficult to access during the middle of a battle, Soundwave had to admit. Yet even still, even knowing how much frametypes had advanced over the ages... he still could not excuse Ultrasonic’s error. “A carrier’s duty: to separate the signals from the noise. Our failures, often result in grave consequences.” 

Crosswise, optics wide, nodded slowly. “I … hadn’t thought about it like that,” he confessed. Which was only to be expected; at his age, how could any mechling expect to understand how often the turnings of history centered upon a single mech? Or how often those turnings were watched by -- or influenced by -- a Chronicler standing in the shadows?

Soundwave inclined his helm, acknowledging the younger carrier’s awe and unease. “Soundwave: also did not understand this, once.” His talons stilled, resting gently, possessively upon Ravage’s bladed nape. “All this, Ravage has done his best to teach. Your cohort: will do the same, when you choose them.” 

Crosswise laced his talons together, obviously resisting the urge to reach out and touch as well. “I understand.” He bowed his helm formally, optics glowing. “Thank you, Memory-keeper, for sharing this with me. I shall keep your knowledge safe.”

Ravage turned his ancient crimson regard to the young carrier, his tail moving in a slow, lazy sweep across the warm flagstones, the weight of his gaze a measuring one. “See that you do.”


	6. Chapter 6

The cycles spent in Recast’s compound were lazy ones, filled with plenty of recharge and sporting in focused sunlight, long soaks in the oil bath, and chilling plunges through the natural solvent springs. Soundwave spent long joors burnishing his symbionts’ plating with fine coats of wax, until they were glossy as any pampered towerling. Recast restored the most vital of Laserbeak’s components to the symbiont, one repaired piece at a time, each newly machined and reinforced with cutting-edge alloys. However some of the fixes, the most delicate and requiring the greatest concentration... would have to wait until after Recast had sparked.

That call came twelve cycles after their arrival. Anticipating the summons, Soundwave was ready, and left his endeavors behind without a second glance. 

The outermost airlock in Recast’s workshop opened promptly for Soundwave’s code. With Ravage at his side and Laserbeak on one shoulder, the big carrier navigated the hatching room’s entry protocols -- flaring his plating so that the fine decontaminating spray could reach everything, exventing hard to clear any trace of foreign atmosphere from his internals. Once decontamination was complete, the innermost hatch spiraled open.

Inside, the hatching chamber smelled like Cybertron, like the ancient caverns burrowed down into the body of Primus. Rough metal slabs had replaced the cool stone of Xyr, and the dim light issued mainly from three silica membranes attached to one wall, each stretched taut around glowing fluid. Ribbons of energon, palest pink and refined to the most exacting standards, drifted through that liquor, hazed with dissolved metals and minerals in precisely the right proportions. Only one of the pouches contained a fully incubated core, the protometal now grown close to the size of Soundwave’s fist, curled tightly in on itself. 

The nascent protocore stirred a little, twisting, stretching, as Soundwave quietly moved forward to let the hatch close behind him. Laserbeak could make out some details -- light sensitive patches, spindly limbs the size of Laserbeak’s smallest talon, fragile leaves of plating, thin as foil. The protocore changed subtly even as the symbiont watched, as if its surface features were just a thin film skimming over a crucible, a molten depth. 

Which was not far from the truth. Protometal was a substance unlike any other. Not entirely Cybertronium, and neither metal nor liquid, it was more akin to starstuff, that elemental plasma born under a billion tons of pressure. Universal laws worked oddly within its substance, quantum physics reigning in mad discordance-- leptons and gluons, string entanglements and strangelets, all conspiring to form the net to capture and sustain a spark, and the spark’s first tool by which to manipulate the world.

The protometal stretched again, responding to the magnetic fields around it, just as it would soon respond to a spark of its own. The core was a good one, uniformly bright silver in color, well-grown and pushing impatiently at the membrane that caged it. 

The reason for that activity knelt quietly before the pouch. Recast held a small, empty spark chamber loosely in his palms. But his attention was focussed inward, helm a little bowed in concentration. A flickering, warm light issued from the fine line down the center of his chest, the plates not quite able to close over the creator’s mass of active internal tools and structures. This was the last step before sparking, checking each finely-spun thread of sparkstuff, finishing all the architectures, folding the newspark into itself so that it could flourish apart from its parent spark. Copying one’s own spark was feat enough -- any mech could do it, theoretically, given time and resources -- but this... this was soul-art, was a genesis requiring unimaginable skill. Not even the best Cybertronian scientists could more than partially grasp the dominion of the spark -- but Creators wove them anyway. 

Soundwave knew, of course, that Recast was framed for this, was sparked for this... but that did not make it any less awe-inspiring. Moving quietly, he knelt beside his creator, a little behind, just watching, and Ravage lay down beside him. The process was physically an internal one, but it showed in Recast’s field. Sapphire blue rippled, parting and joining in this elemental act, putting the final sculpting touches on a faintly emerging shadow of electromagnetism -- golden orange and bladeframe-fierce. 

Recast stirred slightly. All his concentration on the task before him, he did not acknowledge Soundwave’s entrance by either word or comm, but the warm, all-encompassing affection of his field was all the welcome they needed. Acutely conscious of the trust Recast had shown by inviting them, Soundwave kept his own field quiet and open, watching the sparking of a new life.

For a few moments, little happened, save perhaps for an incremental brightening or ebbing of the glow behind Recast’s chestplates. Sapphire and golden light bathed the creator’s plating in radiance, sparking off armor edges, pulsing faintly. Then, in accordance to some unseen signal, Recast shifted, looking upwards. The curled form inside the pouch had shifted, changed--now the outlines of tiny talons could be seen, pressing outwards, reaching towards the siren call of that burgeoning spark. The creator-mech smiled, faceplates shifting upwards, his field warming in tender affection.

“Yes, sparklet--I know what you want,” he murmured. “Such an eager one …” Briefly shuttering his optics once more, he gave the final command. The outer armor of his chassis split, pulling back completely; then, layer by layer, internal components folded away, his internal armor separating, dividing to expose the shining, optic-blinding radiance that was Recast’s spark. The light washed out everything else in its brilliance, sapphire-bright and amazingly strong, and Laserbeak stilled his ventilations, even as he resisted the urge to bristle protectively in response. Even if logically there was no reason to fear for that terribly vulnerable, exposed spark, some things were coded too deeply to ignore--and the protective imperative around sparkbudding was one of them. 

For behind that radiance, almost swallowed in it, was a second--a tiny golden ember, burning fiercely, determinedly, with a reaching corona all out of proportion to its size. Seeking tendrils extended outward, flowering forward like miniature plumes, grasping and curling around the edges of armor, tasting this new world for the first time. The newspark flared suddenly, white-hot, pulling itself outward--and Recast lifted the spark-chamber upwards, the finely-crafted hollow tiny in his cupped hands. 

The newspark hovered at the boundaries of Recast’s spark-field, flaring, reaching--then, with a sudden startling eagerness, bloomed outward, wrapping tendrils of energies about the shining chamber possessively. Recast obligingly moved the cybertronium shell a bit closer to the spark, his frame vibrating with a low, encouraging hum. There was a moment more of hesitation as the spark hung between the boundaries of its creator’s field and the uncertainties of a new world--then, in a lightning-quick transition, the incandescent seed leaped to the new chamber, flaring bright and proud as it expanded, claiming its newfound home. Tiny mechanisms began clicking over in the miniature spark chamber, gaining speed and rhythm, the small reservoir there feeding purified fuel to the spark in measured doses. 

Recast laughed. “Eager indeed … I can see you are ready to take the universe by the audials, sparklet.” His armor shifting back to cover his spark once more, Recast delicately sealed off the final open components of the little chamber, ensuring that the containment field snapped properly into place. The new spark throbbed brightly between his fingers as if in agreement, its corona glowing even through the cybertronium. “And now for the frame …” The waiting protometal frame was pushing at the confines of its pouch in earnest now, reacting to the pull of unshielded spark-energies. It had formed recognizable limbs, all stretching outward, tiny taloned digits reaching out, to grasp and to seize. Another push, a final heave …. and the flexible silicon surface of the pouch split, spilling what little energon and incubating fluids were left outward, the frame tumbling after it. 

The protoframe fell over itself, limbs waving. The core was lumpish, strangely shaped, recognizably mechanoid only because of the close proximity of other mecha, other watching sparks. Rather than twisting to bring its stubby limbs to the ground, it moved the position of the legs instead, rotating them fluidly around the center of its mass, no struts or internal mechanisms to impede shifting or movement. 

Nearly blind, it tottered to four clawed pedes, then fell as it tried to move all of them at once. Functioning on only the most basal of primal protocols, it staggered up again, hooking little talons into the rough stone, half flowing, half running, but making its way unerringly for Recast’s open talons and the spark that called it. 

Recast placed the backs of his hands on the floor, and waited. The protocore reached him, dragged itself gracelessly up. Where one of its limbs got caught behind Recast’s talons, the protoform didn’t even try to disentangle itself -- simply shifted instead, sliding that part of its mass back, flowing around the obstructing talon like liquid. And then it was upon the object of its desire, every part of it shivering with want as it embraced the sparkchamber, tiny surface scales flowing aside as if they were nothing but flakes floating on mercury. Flowing up over the sparkchamber, protometal became one with cybertronium, wafer-thin armor plating shifting to surround and protect, cutting off that ghostly radiance and hiding away the small golden spark.

The protocore seized, trembling-still, huddled in Recast’s talons while it formed its most fundamental of unions, spark imprinting upon the protometal that would contain it, cage it... and also serve it.

Given long enough, resources enough, a sustained spark would eventually form its own protometal. A good protometal core could also form its own spark chamber and containment field, if allowed to engulf the spark directly. This method -- chamber first, then frame -- was the safest, the most certain. But rejection could still happen, though rarely, and so Recast was still, just quietly murmuring a low and soothing hum. The sound felt intensely... familiar to Soundwave, felt like awakening.

The core trembled a little, a field growing around it as the protometal infiltrated the fine mechanisms of the spark chamber, finding pre-built connectors for power couplings and relays. Tiny talons flexed uncertainly, scritching against Recast’s palms, fine scale-plating lifting, flaring, as if to feel each tiny connector. The small helm-like lump pushed out a little more, growing more defined, turning primitive light-sensitive proto-optical patches on the mecha around it, curious.

With a final flare, the sparkling’s electromagnetic field settled fully into place around him, radiant with every shade of gold. Tottering, the sparkling looked up, craning strutlessly. He worked furiously for a few moments, protometal shaping, caving to form primitive mouthparts and buccal cavity, crudely mimicking the mecha around him. The sparking issued a clicking chirp, then scooted to the shadow of Recast’s curved talons and crouched down there, head drawn back, as if fleeing the sudden noise. When nothing unpleasant happened, the sparkling just as quickly lost interest, and instead began snuffling at a sensor node under its simple faceplates. Working very hard, the hatchling scanned the tiny node, feeling the sensor with careful passes of his field, pushing at it with pressure-sensitive protometal. 

Then the hatchling flopped forward, and did his best to wedge one set of small, soft talons under the little sensor. Scrabbling, the newspark attempted to pry the mechanism away from the far larger mech.

Recast chuckled--very quietly, a barely audible rumble of amusement, which nonetheless made the newspark freeze, sampling the fields about himself cautiously. “I’m afraid you can’t have that, little one,” he told the sparkling gently. “It’s a bit oversized for you, I think. Here--” And moving slowly, careful not to dislodge the tiny frame, he reached into subspace with his free hand, withdrawing a handful of tiny components. “Soundwave, if you would--” He tipped the small pile of parts into Soundwave’s extended palm, then picked out a finely crafted sensor-rig. From its size, it was obviously designed with hatchlings in mind, and he extended it downward to his newest creation. “Here, sparklet--shall we see if this meets with your approval?”

The sparkling, which had been eyeing Soundwave’s field from the shelter of Recast’s talons, his own tiny claws still wrapped possessively about the sensor node, was instantly distracted by the offering. Chirping in enthusiasm, the hatchling tumbled forward, still awkward on his pedes, stretching upward to snatch the assemblage from Recast’s talon-tips. The sensory rig was inspected minutely, rubbing helm and talons over the surface, still-forming light-sensitive patches and audial sensors working furiously to scan this new thing that had been given to him. 

The multipurpose sensor was a little more complex than a spark chamber, with inputs and outputs in simple machine code. The sparkling squirmed, plating and protometal shifting, trying on the rig first one way, then another--in one particular maneuver, the hatchling resembled nothing so much as a knotted-up ball of plating and protometal. Then, finding the correct configuration, the sparkling incorporated the rig, clicking with satisfaction as it settled into his frame. The hatchling crouched down, holding himself still as he set about making hardline junctures with the device, tiny buccal cavity opening with comical surprise as the connections solidified and the hatchling both enhanced his sensory abilities... and discovered language.

Of a sort. _\--happy! minegoodmine!--_ The hatchling binary-clicked at his creator, cobbling together the machine code and line-commands he had just learned from the device. Incorporating such a comparatively large rig was typically tiring, but this hatchling seemed to have plenty of energy left over. He explored the terrain of Recast’s palms, growing in confidence and curiosity by the nanoklik, and soon climbed upwards, out of the shelter of Recast’s talons. The hatchling rapidly became more adept in moving as he scaled Recast’s gauntlets, exploring everything with his one sensor and a single-minded focus. _\--creator? creator-other, creator-mine. this? this good, big-not-small. too big? mine?--_ He looked upward, scanning the other mecha in the chamber with his favorite new sensor. _\--all big! same? different? threat-not-threat?--_

“Not-threat,” said Recast, vocalizer clicking as he replied in the same simple binary, the internal language used to communicate with the most basic of a mech’s components. He hummed his pleasure and his pride. All the work of the past vorn, all the careful planning and weaving... and only now could he see the true proof of his concept. 

From his perch on Recast’s forearm, the hatchling wriggled. Using his new sensor -- it was the most wonderful thing ever! -- he could just spot the telltale field-echo of... another tiny sensor, held loosely in the not-creator’s hand. He reached out, balancing unsteadily, talons opening and closing as the hatchling did his best to grasp the new thing. _\--again!--_

“You are an eager one, are you not? So bright already -- I can see you’ll be as great a challenge as my Soundwave.” Recast looked up to meet his creation’s visor, teasing, amused. “Almost, anyway. Here -- see if he’ll take an optical sensor.” Before the hatchling could tip entirely off Recast’s arm, Recast cupped the squirming little protoform, and moved him close to Soundwave’s own palm. 

Laserbeak watched, optics wide, as the impatiently clicking hatchling scooted into the big carrier’s hand and then froze, crouching down and suddenly uncertain. Laserbeak knew all too well what these first moments were like -- the world was so big, made up of such broad swaths of blurry color and half-sensed movement. Physical objects were much harder to detect than fields, but even the newest hatchling could usually make out the contours and light around him. Leaving the familiar resonances of their creator’s field was a terrifying experience, a blind leap into the unknown--at least until a hatchling discovered that he could find his creator again by turning around. 

Soundwave unlimbered a secondary cable and delicately plucked the indicated device from his free hand, a few cilia unfurling to grasp the tiny sensor with the lightest possible touch. Carefully, he presented the miniature lens and attached hardware to the hatchling, which looked up, bolder now that the object of his desire was so very close. After a momentary hesitation, the hatchling lunged for the proffered device. 

The miniature optic was a much simpler component, far easier to incorporate--although the sparkling did make a few fumbling attempts to place it upon his aft, and his chassis, before the optic found its proper home upon the tiny helm. It took the hatchling several more breem to discover that the lensed side had to face out. But once he did, once he managed to make sense of the sensor’s coding and internal commands.... the hatchling gaped at the physical world around him, transfixed. _\--more! recursion-more!--_ A second optic was offered, and just as eagerly taken, and soon the sparkling was staring at everything with bright sapphire primaries, taking in the wealth of visual data now available to him. The optics weren’t quite perfectly placed, but time and Recast would fix that. At least they were on his helm. _\--big! stereoscopic!--_

Laserbeak clicked a little in amusement. _//Wait until he sees real sunlight--he won’t know what to do with himself.//_ The confines of Recast’s nursery were actually quite dim, colors muted in the low light, especially now that the small chamber was devoid of sparklight. He curled his neck, amused; Soundwave had been slow to retract his secondary cable after delivering the second optic, and now the hatchling had wrapped possessive talons around it. Soundwave’s blue-white cilia, so interesting and bright, had retreated inside the sheath of the cable, and trying to pry the multitool tip open and reach inside was getting the hatchling nowhere. The tiny mecha turned to tug fiercely upon the folded multitool instead, foil-thin faceplates scrunched in determination.

 _\--smoothwarm pointy-grasping! mine?--_ clicked the hatchling, his binary lexicon expanding with each new line of code he learned from the devices he incorporated. When the cable wasn’t obligingly detached and given to him, the sparkling took matters into his own talons, pressing spongy protoform belly to the multitool, tiny claws gripping, as he did his level best to incorporate the device, whether it was presently owned or not. Infiltrating protoform issued lines of code to Soundwave’s hardware -- but while multitools responded to some twelve million separate commands, none of those were written in hatchling-suitable ultrabasic. The sparklet’s primitive hack did, however, tickle.

With great care, Soundwave reduced the volume on his vocalizer as much as he was able. “Newspark, has discriminating tastes,” he observed. Multitools were hugely complex and power-consumptive; most symbionts never even tried subsuming one. The hatchling paused, then chirped, looking for the source of the rumbling sound. Then he turned back to trying to take the carrier’s hardware. 

After a few breem, having made no progress, the hatchling withdrew his protoform threads and slumped into Soundwave’s palm, little talons still hooked firmly into his prize. The sparklet turned an accusatory look on Soundwave. _\--give!!--_

Ravage gave a low, rumbling chuckle. “He is a fearless one. And not afraid to seize what he wants,” he said approvingly. “That will serve him well.” He sat upwards, and Soundwave obligingly lowered his hand a little so that Ravage could more properly make the sparkling’s acquaintance, sensory whiskers bristled forward as the bladeframe sampled the tiny mech’s spark-bright, uncomplicated field. Small arms still wrapped around the datacable, the sparkling stared back. _//Welcome to the world, sparklet,//_ Ravage said formally, layering his sending with amusement and affection. The sparkling might not yet understand the glyphs, but attuned to fields as he was, the tiny mech could not mistake the emotion behind the words. _//Memory-keeper, I look forward to seeing what you will become.//_

*****

The very air in Recast’s compound seemed to vibrate with anticipation, as the inhabitants waited eagerly for their first glimpse of the new arrival. Other than his brief interaction with Soundwave shortly after sparking, however, the newspark had stayed tucked away close to his creator. A hatchling was incredibly fragile for the first few cycles, and alternated chiefly between fuelling, subsuming new pieces, and recharging, with little interest in meeting new mecha. As a result, despite their intense curiosity, Soundwave’s cohort as well as Crosswise and Motif did their best to avoid Recast’s workshop. 

So it was with some surprise that Soundwave received Recast’s ping, informing him that the last of Laserbeak’s flightplates was finished. With a newspark under his plating, the creator surely had time for little else! Nevertheless, he eagerly responded to the summons with an acknowledging glyph, sending out his own call; curious and eager, Laserbeak glided to Soundwave’s shoulder, landing neatly. 

This was a pleasant place; even Sundor was enjoying the extended stay. But Laserbeak worried about Soundwave’s other duties....

 _//Thesis preliminaries, granted a twelve-orn extension,//_ Soundwave said casually, stroking the blunt side of a talon lightly along Laserbeak’s neck, pausing to scritch just where a new part itched. _//Duties for researchers, likewise.//_ Away from watching optics, Laserbeak rubbed the side of his wedge-shaped helm lightly against Soundwave’s audial as they traversed the suspended walkways, branches of crystal spreading above. 

Politely, Soundwave pinged for entry at the hatch to Recast’s workshop, and the doorway slid open, releasing a breath of warm atmosphere. Within, Recast stood at a long work-surface, toolsets fully deployed and magnification lenses folded down over his optics. Spot-lamps, hovering obediently on antigravs to keep them out of the way, focussed strong light onto delicate metalwork. 

A rack on the table, full of bolts and rivets and tiny support tensors, rattled in alarm at Soundwave’s arrival. The hatchling tumbled out, far faster than he had been just a few cycles ago, and raced for his creator. A flying leap, a little scrabbling, and the hatchling disappeared.

“Hn,” murmured Recast, unperturbed. “Did you find the three-way nut I was looking for?”

A suspicious silence. “Yes,” chirped a small voice from inside his armor, glyphs simple and sketchy, vocalizer sharply limited. “But I ‘corp-rated it. Accident!”

“You did, hmm? Then I suppose it is a good thing I have plenty of spares,” Recast said easily. “Do you think you could find another?” He glanced up as Soundwave entered, his field warming in welcome. “Ah, Soundwave. That final flightplate is now ready for installation, if Memory-keeper Laserbeak so wishes.” 

After a brief check with his Master, Laserbeak launched himself into the air, gliding gracefully down to land upon a nearby perch. “I do,” he affirmed, looking upward at the creator-mech. “If it would not be too much trouble?” He tilted his head towards the shadowed cavity, well-hidden beneath the overhang of a silver-edged pauldron, from which a pair of miniature sapphire optics warily watched these new interlopers into Recast’s domain. 

“Of course not. I’m certain you wish to have your wings whole once more. Besides, it is always good for sparklets to experience new things.” Setting his project to one side, Recast bustled over to a shelf and carefully lifted out the long, flexible flightplate. The plate gleamed in the light, pristine and new, and Laserbeak could not help but edge closer at the sight; with that replacing his last of his damaged primaries, his wings would quite possibly be even better than new!

The actual installation went swiftly; the reconstruction of the armor had been the lengthiest part of the repair process, and the rest of the work was relatively simple. In less than half a joor, Recast had finished his task, and Laserbeak chirred in delight as he mantled his wings, luxuriating in the sensation of the flight-surfaces gliding without a trace of friction against each other, admiring how they shone in the lights. The simple transformation sequence was perfect and smooth, allowing Laserbeak to split the plates for better control or merge them into a solid wing for very fast flight. He glanced sidelong at the still-hidden hatchling--those blue optics were avidly tracking every movement, tiny talon-tips just visible as they clung to the edge of Recast’s collar-fairing.

Recast nodded approvingly. “I took the liberty of refining the design slightly, Memory-keeper--a slightly sharper sweep on the flight-tips that I think will serve you well, especially when flying in tight spaces.” He looked over his work with a critical eye. “They should also provide a more elegant counterpoint to your frame, as well. Could you transform and dock? I wish to see if I have miscalculated any of the new tolerances.”

“Of course,” Laserbeak replied. Nothing made one more agreeable than a flawless new set of flightplates to preen! A brief ping of inquiry, and Soundwave stepped forward, armor sliding back to reveal the waiting docks. 

A tiny click of surprise issued from underneath Recast’s armor. “Creator! Has holes in middle!” Overcome by curiosity, the hatchling ventured out further, clinging to the surface of Recast’s pauldron, staring at Soundwave intently. Here was something new! “You fix?”

“Hm,” said Recast thoughtfully, “you’re right. We normally fix things with holes. But do you remember? Only if they’re...” he paused.

“Broked!” exclaimed the hatchling, cycling up the earlier memory without any trouble, despite his complete lack of quantum drives or other memory nodes.

“Let’s see if Soundwave looks broken then, alright?” said Recast, and the half-hidden hatchling bravely nodded. 

On his perch, Laserbeak suppressed a chortle, ducking his head. But his Master seemed unaffronted, only turning a little so that the overhead light fell more directly upon his docking components. Carriers tended to be touchy about their internals, both in defense of their symbionts and the carrier’s own position and rank. A carrier with damaged or inoperable docks was no carrier at all, and keeping those components from harm was of vital importance. To be sure, a creator or a medic was allowed far greater liberties... but even still, Soundwave must have been handled and modified a very great deal, to be so trusting now.

With a quiet, subtle smile of thanks, Recast made sure to stand with his shoulder close to Soundwave’s chest. Using one in-built scanner at a time, he began examining Soundwave’s docks. After a few fumbling attempts, the hatchling began mimicking his creator, employing his tiny scanners in the same deliberate manner, passing them over one dock at a time, examining the new structures in exacting detail. “Hmm,” burbled the hatchling, in fair but recognizable imitation of Recast’s voice. 

Soundwave’s internals were, as usual, in very good shape. His recent gains in rank and prestige had afforded all of them better allotments, even with the rationing imposed by the war. And that meant that drones or oftentimes medics were always available to perform tiny repairs and maintenance. _//Are you having trouble with flexure six, or the upper lateral plates?//_ Recast asked, even as he said aloud, for the hatchling’s benefit, “No, I do not believe he is broken.”

 _//Negative,//_ said Soundwave, but spread the indicated equipment helpfully. _//Copper coating, recently installed.//_ Thus the new patina that Recast detected.

“Wooooah,” breathed the hatchling, a sound the provenance of which Laserbeak could not begin to guess at, the tiny mechling obviously very impressed as he watched the receptive flowering of plating and nodes. The slots were warm, dense with the carrier’s field flow. And sampling that field... the hatchling wriggled, little claws scratching at the internal seams of Recast’s protective cavity. He had so many more sensors now, it was hard to tell -- “Hey!” the hatchling squeaked. “Are you from before?” He reached out with tiny talons, trying to touch the oddly-fascinating docks, the biggest of them wider than his whole body.

“Hm, now,” Recast moved back enough to clear a space for Laserbeak, the hatchling on his shoulder chirruping disconsolately, tiny talons waving. “Do you remember how we talked about introducing yourself?” 

“...yeees?” said the hatchling, eyeing Soundwave suspiciously. He didn’t really want to introduce himself, would much rather explore those shadowed slits, now that he knew they were not broked. The hatchling made several clicking sounds to himself, followed by a little more binary. “HelloIamverypleasedtomeetyou,” he finally blurted, evidently attempting to get the whole matter over with in one fell swoop, “mydesignationisStripes, are you from bef---eeep!” with a clatter of talons, the hatchling darted back under the cover of his creator’s armor as Laserbeak glided past. In an elegant cascade of transformation sequences, the elder symbiont shifted into his cassette alt, wings folding inward, and docked neatly in his preferred place.

Hatchling curiosity had that helm peeking out again within moments, however. “It flew! And went inside!” Stripes blurted, optics round. He inched out a little further. “Me. I go inside?” He glanced at Recast, then over at an amused Soundwave, obviously comparing sizes. “It big. I fit!” It looked warm, with so many interesting moving parts. Maybe he could pry some of them off, and then they would be his? 

Recast chuckled. “That is Soundwave, and *he* is big, yes,” he corrected gently. “But that space is not for you. Not until you’re bigger.” And less likely to attempt to remove parts from other mecha’s bodies. 

Soundwave tilted his head, amused at the hatchling’s presumption. Sparklings were expected to explore and to learn, of course, and symbiont sparklings were notorious for their voracious curiosity--but this one seemed especially bold. “Recast, correct. Soundwave: happy to meet you,” he told the hatchling gently, “--both now and before.” 

Laserbeak could feel his Master run a quick diagnostic, as well as sending a query over as to the fit; docked safe and tight, his frame closed in by Soundwave’s plating, Laserbeak sent back a happy affirmative. It felt so good to be whole again; it had been at least a vorn since he had been able to dock without both Soundwave’s self-repair routines and his own repair nanites itching in the deepest parts of his frame.

“Fit, excellent,” Soundwave relayed to a waiting Recast. “Laserbeak: conveys his gratitude for your care.” 

“I am glad--and honored to be given the opportunity,” Recast said cheerfully as Laserbeak undocked, wheeling in a happy spiral about the confines of the workshop before landing upon his preferred shoulder-perch once more. “It is not every vorn that I am allowed to work upon such an elegant frame-design as yours, Memory-keeper. Between yourself and Memory-keeper Ravage, I must confess I am quite impressed by your creators’ work. I can only hope that my own skill is enough to craft this little one a frame half as strong.”

“I are strong!” The hatchling eyed Laserbeak, impressed. He spread his foil-thin plating, trying to make the fragile leaves catch the light like Laserbeak’s wings had done. “And shiny!” He chirped in disappointment as the big one’s slots went away, covered over by huge, thick slabs of cobalt plating. Stripes might be strong, but he didn’t think he could push those things back open. He grumped for a moment, and then brightened as he reviewed what he knew of Soundwave. “You gotta ‘nother hoptic?”

“Soundwave might have another optic for you later,” said Recast, lifting his hand to where the hatchling could see it. Eagerly, Stripes ventured out further, pushing his protoform close for a little gentle scritching. He was visibly larger than Laserbeak recalled, flexible protometal body still undefined, oddly half-finished in appearance with the pieces and parts he’d incorporated. New hatchlings often looked strange during this stage of rapid sensory expansion and mimicry. Given time, Stripes would begin integrating struts and spars and larger structural components, and pieces would eventually settle into a semblance of their permanent placements. That process, of course, could take many vorn, depending on the hatchling and the creator. “If we can get your new helm plating to stay on the surface.”

Stripes slumped. “Is hard do,” he said, snuffling, his surface rippling oddly as he tried to make the armor go where it was supposed to. The effect was faintly disturbing, like nothing so much as jumbled parts floating up to break the surface of a mercury pool, then sinking once more. “Inside, outside.” So confusing!

Laserbeak ducked his head, hiding an open-beaked smile. A protoform was hatched with tiny flakes of plating -- as larger pieces of true armor were introduced, the flakes either merged or migrated to form fine scaling around optics or joints. But learning how to manage those first few bits of real armor, especially since they had a tendency to shift during movement, was indeed a challenge, as he recalled. “Look upon your creator’s helm, little one,” he said kindly. “See how the plates cover everything underneath?” The hatchling peered at Laserbeak, as if uncertain he was the one being addressed; then, curiously, clambered along the side of Recast’s pauldron and from there hitched himself further upward, to peer at Recast’s helm. “That is what yours must do,” Laserbeak continued, watching as those tiny talons explored the fissures and smooth surfaces on the side of Recast’s helm. “No matter how your helm turns, those plates must stay on the top, to cover everything else.” 

Stripes patted Recast’s helm with tiny talons, and then his own, as if to compare. “Helm on top!” Top was much easier than figuring out inside or outside. 

Laserbeak nodded, pleased at the sparkling’s cleverness. “And everything else under,” he affirmed. Recast made a low, amused vibration as the hatchling latched on to the small vents he found, scrabbling up the plating until he clung to the very top of his creator’s crest. 

“Me on top!” Stripes announced proudly, flaring his plating in imitation of Laserbeak’s dignified perch.

“You are indeed,” Recast agreed, and his optics turned to Soundwave, his smile the unspoken affection of a proud creator. “And if you are anything like my other creations, then someday, sparklet, you will find even taller mountains to climb.”

*****

The original plan--at least as far as Recast had made one--was to have the new sparkling meet each of the other mecha in residence in ones and twos. It wasn’t that Recast didn’t trust Soundwave or his other creations. But hatchlings were very easily overwhelmed by too much new data, and the last thing they wanted was to trigger the tiny mech’s survival coding and send him into hiding for an orn or longer. So the creator-mech had worked out a roster, carefully pairing elder symbionts with younger, the rambunctious with the familiar. The first introductions had been planned to start after another cycle or two, once the hatchling had roused from his latest recharge--

\--but Stripes, it seemed, had other ideas.

The basking room, Laserbeak had decided, was possibly the finest invention in all of Cybertronian history. Most of his cohort was present, lounging in somnolent poses according to personal preference, soaking up the warmth, and their presence was as much a balm as the radiation that beat against his photovoltaics, charging nanites until they shone. Not as much as Sundor’s did, of course; the other flightframe was haloed in golden radiance, his energy-absorption abilities eagerly taking in every millijoule of usable solar energy that landed on his plating. Still, Laserbeak was smugly aware of the fine sight they all made, silver wings next to gold, together with the oil-slick black of Buzzsaw’s underside and Raindance’s bold indigo chassis. 

It was a shame his Master wasn’t there to see it, and to join them in this luxury, Laserbeak reflected. Soundwave was attending to long-delayed communications with the Academe, but perhaps their Master could be tempted away--

\--and then a tiny hatchling, his plating shining and still slick with oil, galloped into the basking room, flinging droplets everywhere. Spotting the lounging symbionts, Stripes skidded to a halt, azure optics comically wide, clicking in dismay. 

“Bright!” Tiny optical calipers whirred, adjusting to the glare. The hatchling hesitated, obviously unsure whether to stay or to flee, as helms popped up around the room. Suddenly apprehensive, the hatchling backed up a step--then spotted Laserbeak. “You from before … went inside!” Stripes turned himself in a tight circle, then craned his helm backwards to scan the ceiling, apparently on the theory that Soundwave might have hidden himself up there. “Big not here?”

Buzzsaw chortled, neck curving as he peered upside-down at the hatchling. “Sorry, bitlet, he’s away. What you doin’ running wild?” Disconcerted by the question and all the optics upon him, Stripes edged another shuffling step back into the hallway, so that he could peep silently at the four flighted frames from the around the edge of the open hatch.

Laserbeak clacked his beak -- quietly. _//You are a clay-clawed knave, Buzzsaw,//_ he said, flightplates rustling as he arched one wing, making an invitingly dark space beneath, just about the size of one of a creator mech’s armored cavities. A flightframe was a smallish frame for a symbiont, but even still, Laserbeak’s wingspread stretched two full mechanometers -- plenty of space for one small hatchling. “Come join us, Stripes. You shall enjoy the warmth here, even if you’ve no photovoltaics as yet.”

The shadowed hollow beckoned under that shining, warm wing. “Kay,” said the hatchling, taking one more suspicious look around. When it seemed that no lurking predators hovered nearby, Stripes edged a little closer... then broke into a bounding dash, kicking up his stubby pedes. He crossed the open space in a galloping streak, and dived under the rustling flightplates. 

A little scrabbling, and that small helm promptly poked back out, optics reduced to pinpoints in the bright light. Stripes focused on the interested mecha around him, studying each in turn. “How come you different?” he chirped, eyeing Raindance’s sleek blue frame.

The seekerframe was smaller than a flightframe, but as heavy as any two of them, with far larger tanks and engines and a more compact build. His chassis shivered a little with subtle laughter. “I look different so that I can do things the others cannot,” he told the hatchling, lifting himself up on antigravs and executing a slow barrel roll through the dense shafts of sunlight, effortlessly controlling himself in the air. 

“Like what?” The hatchling peeped, not so easily convinced.

That query drew a brief chirp of amusement from the seekerframe. “Like this,” he said, initiating a contour-mapping laser, set to lowest power. The pinpoint dot of light, one end held rock-solid steady by Raindance’s exquisite antigrav suite, danced and wriggled its way over the floor just in front of the hatchling’s optics.

Predictably, Stripes couldn’t resist. The sparkling lunged from his cover, tiny talons scrabbling as he did his best to pin the dot down. Squeaking, the hatchling pounced several more times, that cagey, devilish little dot of light always just escaping his grasp. 

_//I could totally do that, too,//_ Buzzsaw protested, rolling himself over lazily to toast his back as well. 

_//So you claim,//_ said Raindance, his teasing easy and familiar, _//but you didn’t account for one thing... my trained attack hatchling!//_ and he shone the dot on Buzzsaw’s outstretched wing.

 _//Your wha--//_ “Aawk!” Buzzsaw squawked in surprise as the hatchling landed right on him, little claws scrabbling, sprinkling droplets of oil all over his back. “Fraggin’ Primus on a microchip!”

In sudden terror, the sparking launched himself off the flightframe in a flying leap, little pedes flailing the air. One bounce, and he shot back under Laserbeak’s wing, curling into a tight, frightened ball. 

_//You are both idiots,//_ sighed Sundor, and pinged a very worried Recast. He arched his finely-crafted helm down on long, supple neck, peering into the little hollow under Laserbeak’s wing. “Buzzsaw is very sorry,” he told the hatchling. “He didn’t mean to scare you, he was just surprised.”

 _//The frag I was. Little claws’re like needles. Lookit these scratches...//_ started Buzzsaw.

Laserbeak lifted his head, giving his flightbrother a narrowed crimson glare, the plates on the back of his neck lifting slightly, although his field never wavered from its warm, affectionate reassurance--and Buzzsaw shrank back, abashed. Folding his wings tightly, he hunched down, attempting to make himself look as small and uncharacteristically meek as possible. “‘m sorry, bitlet. I didn’t mean it--you surprised me.”

Tiny blue optics peered back at him, but Stripes made no attempt to move from hiding place. “ … loud.” he said eventually, his voice very small.

“Yes, he is,” Laserbeak said with another laserlike glare at Buzzsaw, then curled his neck around, laying his head down where the hatchling could see. He was careful not to look directly at Stripes, however, not wishing to make the newspark feel trapped. “But he won’t hurt you, I promise. None of us will.”

“... not squish?” Tiny talons tapped against the polished stone of the floor indecisively. Laserbeak clicked reassuringly, and Sundor oh-so-casually extended one wing, stroking his beak against shining flightplates. The hatchling edged forward, optics fixed upon the dazzling display. 

“Shiny-metal …” A little taloned pede reached out to touch. Sundor pretended obliviousness as those small digits traced along the top of one flightplate. “He warm!” Stripes marveled, edging out far enough to look up at Laserbeak. 

“He is,” Laserbeak agreed. “And very nice to snuggle against,” he added coaxingly. “Want to see?”

“Maybe?” After another few moments’ consideration, the hatchling edged out further, tracing the dazzling reflections over the long lengths of Sundor’s flightplates. The golden flightframe obligingly extended his wing further, encouraging further exploration. Stripes inspected the limb’s underside, a tiny frown forming on his faceplates. “No talons?” 

“Only here, sparklet,” Sundor said, lifting one pede to show him. “Raindance has talons; but we have wings.” He mantled them, lifting his wings up and outward in full impressive display. 

“Oooohhh …” Stripes clicked to himself, obviously impressed. He reached upward. “Give!” 

“I fear these ones are too large for you,” said Sundor, well aware of the proclivities of hatchlings. His creator had sparked quite the clutch once, and keeping them from tottering off with the other hatchlings’ parts had been a challenge. “But look, and see if you want your own smaller set, yes?” 

“Yes!”

Obligingly, Sundor lay back down, letting the round little hatchling tug and touch as he willed, leaving little oily talon-prints on every flightplate. He’d not normally permit a creature such familiarity, but Soundwave was a particularly attentive Master when it came to cleaning, and besides, the hatchling’s obvious awe was quite flattering. _//We may recruit another flightbrother yet,//_ he observed, his plating as radiant as the hatchling’s field. 

_//Hn,//_ said Laserbeak, watching the hatchling grow bolder by the moment. Stripes didn’t have long to explore -- soon Recast arrived, Soundwave and Ravage beside him. Crosswise, Motif clinging to his shoulders, poked his helm around the corner, optics wide.

The creator-mech paused at the threshold, taking in the scene -- flighted frames splayed out over every surface, a thin slick of oil and grit tracked everywhere between them, his hatchling attempting to divest Sundor of several flightplates and so engrossed he didn’t even notice the arriving mecha. Recast cycled a quiet vent. 

“Ha!” crowed Ratbat loudly, patting Soundwave’s audial, “I told you that schedule wouldn’t--”

Stripes yelped at the sudden noise. “Fragga-Primus!” the hatchling cheeped, as if it were a bizarrely profane warning call, and darted under Laserbeak’s wing. 

Eight pairs of irate optics--and one pair of gleefully amused ones--turned to glare. If Buzzsaw flattened himself any more, he’d probably sink into the floor. 

“What? Why is everyone looking at me? It’s not my fault!”


	7. Chapter 7

It had been over half a vorn since they'd left Iacon. Caught unprepared by the consequences of their unplanned rescue attempt, Soundwave had nonetheless done what he could to keep them safe and to cover their trail. It became clear, however, that their escape had to be soon, while the powerful mecha they had offended were still dealing with the fallout from the scandal and the riots. Once those disturbances had been quelled, the Senate would begin to look for mecha to blame, and Chroniclers were far too memorable to escape unnoticed. If the mine-mecha didn’t talk, the local enforcers would. Iacon was no longer safe; they had to leave, ready or not, while they still could.

So they had fled, abandoning even the outlying environs of the great city-states, striking out into the empty spaces between. Here, the energon shortage was even more apparent as they passed small settlements, now abandoned, stripped of anything that might be useful or consumable. The occasional half-scavenged frames of deactivated empties were often scattered around such places; abandoned mecha so devoid of resources that they simply wandered in mindless misery until their sparks finally guttered out, leaving nothing but corroded, empty frames behind. 

This far from Iacon, deep in the jagged, sunless mountain ranges and valleys far from Cybertron’s core, the darkness and the cold were inescapable, binding joints, threatening to shatter delicate sensory spines, and frosting the edges of armor with intricate crystalline geometries. Only the best-adapted mechanoid life still stirred upon the surface: creatures who had successfully found ways to survive the cold, from dangerous ambush hunters to small, efficient mechanisms that could subsist on the barest gleanings of energon. Most would not pose a threat to a mech as large and well-armored as Soundwave … but the same could not be said for the symbionts who travelled with him.

Despite the danger, Ravage and the flightframes refused to be confined within the safety of Soundwave’s alt, ranging wide to scout the broken terrain and search for shelter. Soundwave himself had sacrificed some of their precious energon hoard in order to reconfigure his alt-mode, setting aside his sleek, city-adapted alt for something designed for rougher terrain, with broader studded wheels, higher clearances and heavier plating along vulnerable sides. 

Soundwave had been kind, and protective, and far more generous to a symbiont not his own than Flipsides deserved. But as he sat with the small cohort, all of them huddled close for warmth and companionship, watching as Soundwave checked over Laserbeak’s wings for any signs of stress fractures ... Flipsides couldn’t help but but worry. He had chosen to leave his carrier, had even chosen to leave Iacon in the company of this cohort. So far they had survived well enough, but how long would that continue? The stolen energon they had carried away from the mine would not last forever, and when supplies became scarce … Soundwave would do his best, Flipsides knew. The big carrier had already made a few gentle overtures of courtship. And no carrier would ever willingly leave a symbiont behind. Still, carrier imperatives were clear--the survival of one’s cohort came before all else. If Soundwave were forced to choose .... 

Before, when they’d taken his master away, he and Minebreak still had each other, at least. They’d still been in a city where they could barter with other mecha, could scrounge for scraps and hope to find a new carrier. If he was left out here, in the cold and the dark …. He couldn’t reconfigure his alt like larger mecha, could only travel on his own two pedes. He had no real weapons, no protection, and without a carrier …!

A heavy winged weight landed in his lap with a resounding *thump*. Wing and pede-claws clinging to his armor, Ratbat twisted to look up at the mechkin. _//You’re running hot,//_ he observed, his sharp-muzzled faceplates pinched in disapproval. _//Your internals are 2.3 degrees above optimum operating temperature. That’s not very efficient.//_

 _//I--I’m sorry,//_ Flipsides stammered, taken off-guard by the accusation. _//I didn’t mean to waste fuel.//_ He of all mecha knew how precious it was!

 _//Well, stop it.//_ Ratbat fixed him with a beady optic. _//Just because we’ve got a whole lot of it right now doesn't mean you can be running your processors like that.//_

 _//I'm sorry!//_ Flipsides repeated desperately, checking over his diagnostics. If any of the cohort found him intolerable for any reason, his chances of serious courtship dwindled to nothing. And he had seen the care and attention with which Soundwave attended to Ratbat, how he respected the glideframe's judgment despite the fact that Ratbat’s frameclass was not known for their wisdom -- what if Ratbat demanded that Flipsides be left behind? Flipsides could easily imagine those big cobalt hands setting him down, leaving him in the crumpled ruins of a city, where only the glow of a bot's chassis lights served to illuminate the shadows where the empties twitched. Could imagine watching that broad-shouldered frame walk away, leaving him alone in the dark ....

 _//You're *still* doing it!//_ Ratbat's little claws scrabbled as he climbed Flipsides' frame, glaring angrily. 

From his place in Soundwave’s lap, Laserbeak snaked his head upwards, giving Ratbat a stern look. "Whatever are you two doing?" 

"He's burning too much fuel! It’s inefficient!" the glideframe complained, and Flipsides wished he could sink through the ground to hide his embarrassment.

Soundwave stirred a little, hand cupped over Laserbeak's back. 

"Ratbat." Laserbeak tilted his helm, frost drawing a netted, fractaled pattern over his plating. "Even if that were a proper subject of commentary, he still uses less than any of us."

"Yeah, but..."

"I'm sorry!" Flipsides said helplessly, hardly knowing what he was apologising for. Laserbeak turned an incisive gaze on the little mech, studying him. 

"Observation: recharge advisable." Soundwave offered his gauntlet, and the flightframe in his lap hopped with agile grace to the cobalt plating and then to the ruins of a crumpled wall. "Ratbat: currently well-rested, able to share a memory." Soundwave took a step back, giving himself space, and then folded down into his alt, all four spiked wheels crunching into the debris. He winged a door wide on the cargo compartment, the space already warming for the waiting symbionts.

"Aaw!" The glideframe slumped, doing a passable imitation of a serpentframe as he puddled himself over Flipsides’ thighplates. "I only rode because you said..."

"The batlet can be an aft," Buzzsaw said to the mechkin, sidling closer, wings fanning the chill air. He gave the mechkin a nudge with his helm, urging him towards the warmth and safety of Soundwave’s alt. "But he don't mean it, exactly. Might help to see where he's comin' from."

"Agreed," came another voice from the shadows. Ravage prowled with lazy grace from between two derelict structures, his plating rimed with carbon dioxide frost. "Sundor's first meeting with Soundwave, I think."

Ratbat squeaked in dismay. For one thing, the memory wasn’t even his, which made it much less interesting, and worse, it didn’t centrally feature Ratbat! And he'd been bad, and everybody would see it! Again! "How about the one with the-"

"No," said Ravage flatly.

Ratbat had learned better than to argue with a bladeframe's long fangs. “Fine,” the glideframe huffed, climbing off Flipsides with little regard as to where he put his claws. Launching himself into the air, he swooped into Soundwave’s waiting passenger compartment, with Ravage pacing close behind. Laserbeak soon followed, and Buzzsaw gave Flipsides another friendly nudge. 

“Go on. We could all use some ‘charge. And no matter what the batlet says, this memory is a good one to share on cold nights.”

“A-all right.” There was certainly no reason to sit out in the cold when the warmth and protection of a carrier was there, waiting for them. Even if the carrier wasn’t his. Flipsides clambered to his pedes and headed for the waiting vehicle. A rush of cold air followed Buzzsaw’s entrance as the flightframe swooped in from overhead, and Flipsides climbed through the hatch, moving to the front and snuggling down into one of the heated interior alcoves as the rest of Soundwave’s cohort arranged themselves around the open passenger space. Most of Soundwave’s alt was, of necessity, taken up by the protected docks, leaving just enough space for a few symbionts to ride in the open compartment. If Soundwave had been carrying a full cohort, it would have been impossible for all ten of them to fit undocked--but with only five, there was room enough for them all to remain in more mobile forms, to twine and curl around each other for reassurance and comfort.

Once all of them were inside, Soundwave closed his hatch, enclosing them all within. Buzzsaw hopped over to twine his tail comfortably around Flipsides’ arm, settling down and propping his beak over one of the mechkin’s kneeplates. The soft blue glow of datacables illuminated the darkness as primaries slipped out from housings along the walls, Soundwave linking them all together in recharge, their minds networking over the carrier's highway. Safe and warm, Flipsides let go of his fears, and sank gratefully into the opened memory, as Ratbat took them all back to Vos, to a time of warmth and light and endless possibilities ...

**********

Sundor rode the currents of heat that coiled skywards from the engines of the starcruisers. Destined for every corner of the empire, great ships both sparked and unsparked crowded together like a convening of leviathans, uncaring of the cold of Cybertron's greatest stardock. It was no more bitter than the cold between those distant, beckoning suns, after all.

He overflew a grouping of sparked shuttles, circling wide around the massive loading cranes; with his shielding cells all but drained, he could afford no chance collisions! Trident, Bow Wave, Firefly ... hundreds of designation-glyphs glowed on the ships lined in ranks below, all silently swallowing down troops or disgorging the spoils of war. Voltaic was destined for Tris, an icy arctic band of meteoroids wreathing a trinary star system. Ecliptic was scheduled to chart a wide arc from Parhelion to Knorr 5, visiting a dozen suitable systems along the way. 

So many possibilities, so close... and yet so far. Sundor possessed credits enough - secreted away in uncomplicated accounts, as was the wont of most symbionts - to book passage on any of these ships. But which captains could be trusted not to strip a lone symbiont of his extremely valuable personal shielding hardware? Which routes were safe enough to risk a symbiont of Sundor's great age and experience? And, given the ever-shifting nature of this war, all the blockades and the standoffs, what if Sundor found himself trapped on a planet with solar energy aplenty, but no carriers to sustain him? All of these and more were matters to which a carrier normally, naturally, attended.

Wings pumping hard, Sundor spiraled up over the stardock, studying the layout once more. Glittering ships were in motion everywhere, with ranked shuttles stretching a filum in every direction, a vast carpet of light and movement. And these were just the smaller transports - far larger ones circled far above, balanced between the pull of the planet and the moons, awaiting cargo carried up by the tethered ribbons of space elevators. The bounty of choices did not help Sundor. He had been contemplating his options and the attendant problems for an orn, and as yet had no satisfactory solution to any. 

A series of flashes caught his optic, brief glints from the nearby Towers that ringed the great stardock. Curiosity sparked; that did not seem to be the normal patterns of light produced by airframes. Perhaps the flares heralded a lightshow, or a great display of pyrotechnics, possibly producing enough lumens to harness a megajoule or two. After a moment’s indecision, Sundor changed direction. Even if it turned out to be nothing, perhaps he could at least momentarily forget his concerns and simply enjoy the dance of illumination. 

It took only a klik to navigate the space between, even with all the activity of the spaceport between him and his goal. Sundor might not have the speed of a Seekerframe, but a flightframe’s aerial agility was unmatched, and he wove his way between airframes, shuttlemecha, and flurries of drone-traffic unerringly, emerging unscathed into the quieter airspace above his goal. 

Below him … was an oasis of peace and tranquillity. Vos was justly famed for its high-altitude aerial sanctuaries, all of them beautiful examples of the Towers’ rivalry and prestige displayed for all to see and admire. Open platforms, circumscribed only by the force-barriers required to keep fragile xenospecimens and delicate crystals safe from the tearing force of high altitude winds, soared high on supports wrought into ornate shapes or adorned by glyphs. Some were ancient, lifted up by archaic buttresses and cantilevers, while other, more modern gardens soared freely in midair, supported only by antigravs and tethered by force-clamps. Within these gardens, hatchlings could test their newfound aerial skills in safety, airframes could gather under the open sky, and visitors of all kinds, grounder and airframe alike, could marvel at the alien wonders of a hundred thousand worlds on artful display.

This particular aerial garden belonged to Aile Tower; a shallow bowl some 800 mechanometers square, sculpted to resemble a scalloped organic shell. The garden was small, obviously not meant for large gatherings, and glowed softly in the darkness against the side of its parent Tower. Within the transparent confines of a force-barrier, luminous, fragile methane jellies floated, eddying in schools and alien patterns, their frond-tendrils twining and sparking a dizzying array of colors. They were courting, Sundor belatedly realized; their alien dance of mating and reproduction had created the rainbows of showering light he'd detected from afar.

Spiralling downward, Sundor pinged for entrance at the entry-hatch. It irised open, and he glided inside, fascinated by the display. Methane jellies were not terribly rare. They were relatively easy to maintain, even on Cybertron, and most Towers had at least a few of the creatures in various enclosures or gardens. But Sundor had never before seen so many, nor such a spectacular courting display; this garden must have been specifically designed for them.

There seemed to be few mecha in this particular garden, the locals no doubt busy with their own functions. Sundor swept low over glimmering pyrite formations, the larger imported stones nestled into carefully maintained dunes and hollows of gold-flecked obsidian sand. Hydrocarbons bubbled through the sand, thickening the atmosphere, nurturing the wheeling, congregating jellies. Perhaps he should rest here for a while, and soak in the light. In a way, it was almost as if this garden had been designed to complement his own gold-plated beauty. What better place to consider his future? 

Where to perch … low or high, visible or safely hidden? The former was preferable, of course, but without a carrier … perhaps hidden was better. The thought rankled. He was not some slithering serpentframe or scuttling foxframe, to slink in the shadows! But--

“I don’t wanna! It’s boring! And they’re stupid, and they don’t listen anyway!” a high-pitched voice cried, loud enough to make nearby jellies ripple in reaction.

Curiosity proved the deciding factor. In the dense atmosphere, silver soon tarnished to smoky black, and that effect had been put to decorative use in the sculptures and dividing screens that partitioned the garden. Sundor glided deftly through a tangle of metal wrought to seem like the volcanic-spun stone of Hyatith 2, wings tucked tight and flightplates split for silence, cloaked in netted shadows. 

He needn't have bothered. The carrier seated in the garden alcove probably wouldn't have noticed if Sundor had landed right on him--his hands were thoroughly full with an irate glideframe.

"And then - and then they won't listen and nobody cares and this whole assignment is stupid, Soundwave!" Little claws scraped on metal as the symbiont flailed.

… an irate glideframe in the throes of a temper tantrum, apparently. Sundor refrained from clacking his beak in an effort of will. He was passingly familiar with the frametype. Glideframes took their function to the extreme; their sparks were so limited in output they could support even less hardware than most drones. Their processors were almost absurdly simple, their flight capabilities no more than basic, their emotional capabilities... well. Sundor really couldn't see the point, himself. Such symbionts supposedly made good partners for statistician-carriers, who needed to organize and store vast quantities of data but cared little for the lessons to be drawn from experience. This statistician-carrier, however, was apparently discovering the drawbacks to his selection. Sundor settled in for a little cheap entertainment. 

Small glide surfaces flapped in every direction. "They're all still arguing over the translinial functions and the translinial functions won't make one bolt of difference and I keep telling them that but nobody cares!" The glideframe seemed to be attempting to climb straight up his carrier.

The big cobalt statistician showed none of the frustration he must have felt, handling the glideframe with unvarying gentle care, offering one hand after another for the small symbiont to clamber across. The symbiont soon exhausted himself, and clung shivering to the carrier's hands instead, round little chassis pressed flat against a broad cobalt palm.

"Ratbat: would prefer to dock?" The carrier asked the glideframe at a momentary break in the little bot's whinging. Sundor tilted his head, puzzled by the monotone, the oddly truncated glyphs. Was the carrier damaged?

"...no," the glideframe snuffled miserably.

"Ratbat, had very trying day," the carrier observed, talons turning to scritch gently at tiny audials and thin plating. “This assignment, important to Raindance.”

“I *know* that,” came the peevish reply. The glideframe was apparently torn between enjoying his carrier’s attentions and holding on to his temper, turning restlessly around on his perch even as he leaned into the gentle strokes. “But he thinks they’re going to ask him for the data they want and they’re not going to and they’re not going to listen to us about the translinials because their stupid AIs say different and they think we’re just outdated data-carriers. And then Buzzsaw will probably start a fight, and Raindance will get angry and fly off and then we’ll have to wait for him to come back and it’s just all a big waste of time, Soundwave! We should do what I want instead!”

Typical. Though Sundor had to admit this was the first time he’d seen a glideframe who was so focussed on hypotheticals. Usually they--like most symbionts, if he were honest--lived in the moment, concentrating on their foci and leaving the planning of such things to their carriers. And also - Raindance? Surely not the same symbiont Sundor had met, a specialist in warfare, and a mech whom Sundor rather liked. What would such a symbiont be doing with a dedicated academic like this?

“Ratbat: concerned for rest of cohort?” the carrier--Soundwave--asked gently, talons never faltering in their soothing strokes. It was an interesting question for this carrier to ask, considering the selfish nature of the glideframe’s demands. But even given Ratbat’s limitations, this carrier was actually listening, treating his symbiont’s demands with grave courtesy. If Sundor’s former carrier had bothered to do that, instead of just assuming-- He shook the memory away, flaring spinal plating irritably. What was done was done, and he’d made his choice. There was no point in dwelling on it.

"No. Yes? Sort of," said the symbiont crossly, little wingclaws scrabbling as he tugged a scritching talon into a better position behind one tiny pointed audial. "It’s just that nobody does what I want and then they're inefficient and they get angry and then they're even more inefficient...." 

The carrier unlimbered several cables, the tips flexing and unfolding, well-maintained and agile. Sundor craned his helm to get a better look - it seemed that the fairing plate that housed the cables was unusually long on this carrier's back - and scraped his own crest on the silver brambles around him. Sundor froze, but the carrier didn't seem to register the small noise. "Query: what would Ratbat prefer to do?"

Another bizarre question; a carrier chose his cohort’s assignments. A glideframe didn't have the hardware to even begin to consider all the....

"I want to go to space!" The glideframe announced.

Sundor had to clamp his beak shut on a laugh. A statistician-carrier, leave an assignment early in order to go haring across the galaxy? Soundwave would no doubt scoff and dismiss the selfish proposal out of hand. 

The carrier paused a moment, clearly taken aback. In silence, he finished removing a small cube of supplies from his subspace, cable tips as dexterous as if they commanded his full attention. He dipped a multitooled tip into the cube, withdrew it glittering with nanites that reflected all the subtle hues of the courting jellies overhead. "Query: where does Ratbat wish to go?"

Perhaps Soundwave was humoring the glideframe? He had to be!

Ratbat slumped even more. "I don't know," he snuffled miserably, drawing more soothing scritches and stroking. 

"Proposal: Ratbat and Soundwave, will walk through the stardocks next orn?" Soundwave offered, which puzzled Sundor. Was the carrier telling the little glideframe he could choose any destination he wanted? That was a recipe for disaster if Sundor had ever heard one. 

Ratbat didn’t reply right away, stretching out under his carrier’s attentions with a peevish little sigh as cable-tips smoothed glittering nanite cultures over already gleaming wings. Ratbat certainly didn’t appear to need the attention; he was obviously well cared for, his topcoat glossy and pristine. And yet that didn’t seem to matter to the carrier, who seemed intent upon buffing the aubergine and ebony plating into a mirrored, glowing shine with delicate, circular strokes.

It was an odd way to handle a temper tantrum--but Sundor had to admit he was a little jealous of the attention. Not that *his* plating was anything but flawless, but still ….

Sundor watched, growing enrapt, as Soundwave buffed in a diffuse coat of the gleaming nanites... and then began gently scraping lines clean. The nanite solution was normally quick to dry to a hard finish, but here in the carbon-dense atmosphere, it apparently remained soft for a longer period. The result was the same elaborate fractal whorls and recursive patterns commonly painted by attentive carriers... in reverse, dark marks on a glowing field. Sundor had never seen such a thing, but the technique was unquestionably lovely. 

Eventually, Ratbat relaxed to grip a cabletip with his own stubby pedeclaws, maneuvering himself to hang upside down, painted wings hugged around his plump little chassis. “... fine,” the little glideframe said huffily, optics spiralled half shut, as if he were the one humoring an irrational carrier. Talons stroked and scritched around his delicate muzzle, the nape of his neck. A showering cascade of color in every shade of red and gold glimmered off of both their frames as a tangle of jellies floated past, their fronds woven into a latticework of light.

Both carrier and symbiont basked in the glow, the little glideframe rocking his elaborately painted chassis just a little, back and forth, stilling whenever his carrier found just the right place to scritch. Some trick of the visible light made the carrier's field seem radiant, illuminative with a deep and peaceful kind of warmth.

"Memory-keeper, also wishes to be painted?" The carrier asked quietly, helm turning, visored gaze picking Sundor from the shadows. 

It took Sundor an instant to process that, to register that he'd been discovered. He was saved by the glideframe's indignant protest.

"Hey, that's my paint and I don't wanna...."

"Ratbat." The carrier, so oddly permissive when it came to things of far greater importance, was firm on this. "Supplies, sufficient for symbionts to share-"

Sundor was already jetting skyward, pinging for an exit through the shielding bubble around the garden, leaving the glideframe's protests and the glowing jellies behind. It hardly mattered that Sundor had been found out; he'd heard enough. The carrier would be visiting the starships, would be assaying their qualities and destinations. Sundor would watch them, find out exactly how the carrier made his selection, then repeat the process for himself. Simple. Right?

**********

The carrier visited the stardocks of Vos right on schedule. Grounders were permitted access to fewer than a quarter of the facilities, but even that limited space nevertheless would have taken a full vorn to truly explore in detail. The carrier walked with a measured pace, the glideframe perched on one shoulder, Raindance - and it was indeed Raindance, the young seekerframe Sundor had encountered almost a megavorn ago - circling above. Sundor, for his part, kept his distance, relying on keen optics over proximity to keep tabs on the little grouping, slipping from one unobtrusive perch to the next. It was difficult to stay unnoticed with a seekerframe in the air, but thankfully Raindance appeared to be distracted, and there were enough other mecha in flight above and around the docks to cover his movements.

The little cohort didn’t appear to be in any particular hurry; if they had a certain ship or destination in mind, it wasn’t evident in their progress. They had wandered somewhat randomly for the last few joors, inspecting ships small and large, sparked and unsparked, pausing to speak briefly with crewmembers and captains before moving on. With an effort, Sundor stifled his impatience. If the carrier ended up not choosing a ship at all … well, at least he would be no worse off than he'd started.

And yet … for some reason he didn’t find that particularly comforting.

The seekerframe wheeled downward in a tight spiral, cutting his engines and transforming to land neatly upon a nearby softlight display, balancing handily upon the top of the projector frame. He gestured down at it, and appeared to be saying something to his carrier. The big cobalt mech headed over obediently, Ratbat scrambling from his shoulder perch to an extended gauntlet, little optics fixed on the scrolling glyphs. Flitting closer, Sundor tucked himself deep into the shadow of a dozing shuttlemech and craned his long neck, peering at the display. It was an informational terminal. A common enough sight in any stardock, and hardly worthy of note--unless one needed to review all the upcoming itineraries. Which was exactly what the little glideframe appeared to be doing.

Given the number of arrivals and departures from Vos’ stardocks, reviewing them all could take quite a while. Apparently the carrier had expected this, moving to seat himself nearby as the glideframe clung to the terminal possessively, tiny optics trained on the data before him. Raindance soon joined his master, landing with characteristic grace and the barest flare of antigravs upon the bench. Curious, Sundor upped the gain on his audials, reflexively filtering out the rumbling engine-snores of the nearby shuttlemech as he did so.

"-dance, is well-prepared for conference," the big carrier observed, removing a previously-purchased cube of flightgrade from his subspace, and sectioning off a smaller portion neatly. The energon gleamed a silvery-pink - spiced with zinc, probably, for a crisp bite at first sip, followed by a spreading warm sensation through the fuel lines. Sundor tamped down his jealousy.

"I think so," the symbiont agreed, looking up. Seekerframes could take three forms, a rare talent among symbionts, but their ground-based alt was far less refined than that of a true triplechanger. Raindance's was better than most - he managed to look like a very blocky mechkin, though his integrated wings made him a great deal less flexible than most of his symbiont brethren. He reached up for the proffered cube. "I suppose it depends on whether they'll want to actually hear my results or not."

Soundwave sipped his energon contemplatively. "Results, very important. Variation from AI estimates, extreme."

Raindance looked up, a grin spreading across his simple faceplates. "I'm not surprised you noticed. But the answer's still no - it really is better if I go to this meeting alone." The Seekerframe had changed a great deal from the hasty, brash newspark Sundor had known. He'd seen a great deal of potential, then. It was good to see that promise fulfilled. "This might be an academic review, but we're still dealing with a Tower full of Seekers. Protocol's important."

Seekers, Sundor knew, could put the rites and rituals of the Primes to shame. Raindance had a definite advantage, due simply to his frametype. He could at least speak the subtle body language of wing cant and aileron flicker. Seekers also tolerated the flighted - symbiont or not - far better than they did the ground-bound. 

"Soundwave: acknowledges," the carrier said, nodding slowly. "Additionally, has researched historical rank markers of Aile Towerlings."

"Oh?" Raindance asked, taking another swallow from his miniature cube. 

"Affirmative. Airlord Aile, wore diplomatic colors in the third Golden Age, prior to ascension. Projected response to variations of these colors, favorable."

"Really? I didn't know that."

"Secondary consideration: early era Vosian diplomats, spies, frequently wore symbolic marks of battles and deactivations to their credit. Front-line intelligence resulting in enemy defeat, often indicated by particular patterns."

The symbiont frowned, puzzled. "I've never been formally attached to the military. And I never..."

Soundwave inclined his helm. "Tronius Four," the carrier said simply. It took Sundor a nanoklik to place the name -- it had been the site of an early battle in the present Tr!klcctch conflict.

Raindance blinked. "Err. Well yes, but that was an investigative mission, not really spying, exactly-"

"Illius crater confrontation," the carrier continued. 

“Well, that *might* qualify. But it’s a bit of a stretch …”

“Sunaion retreat.”

“Ok, that was pure luck, really. I wasn’t even supposed to be that far forward-”

“Coviaon division assault. 394th Skykiller Division liaison. Primary witness to the fall of Archaeon-” Soundwave continued implacably. Sundor listened, impressed--Raindance had been busy indeed over the last megavorn! Though what had a statistician-carrier been doing so close to the front lines?

“All right, all right, Master,” Raindance protested laughingly, small hands up in feigned surrender. “You win. And I suppose you have some ideas on how we’re going to get all that onto my wings?”

“Soundwave: might have a few,” came the deadpan reply.

Raindance trilled a laugh, an open, easy sound, delighted and unquestionably trusting. "I don't suppose you have -- no, of course you do." He grinned as Soundwave drew a datapad from subspace, apparently unsurprised by the planning his carrier had put into the proposal before ever broaching the notion. Lengthy preparation wasn't an unusual trait for a statistician, really, but even still... Sundor watched as Raindance stretched himself happily across his carrier's lap, uncaring of passers-by. Chinplates propped up on one palm, cube of spiced fuel by his elbow, he examined Soundwave's datapad while the carrier smoothed a hand down his back and wings.

"I see what you mean... these really are subtle. We wouldn’t need to alter my base color much..." Raindance mused as he flicked through the images, while Soundwave checked over joints and seams with an air of long practice and careful attention. Several datacables unfurled to pluck small cubes of paints and supplies from subspace. Sundor couldn't catch a glimpse of the datapad. The attentive sweep of those talons looked so nice, and the idling recharge-rumble of the shuttlemech beside him was no consolation at all. Sundor curled his long tail close around his chassis. 

"Maybe this one?" Raindance gestured at something on the pad. His carrier looked over, and gave a nod.

“Design, well-suited to your colors,” he remarked, reaching out to touch another part of the flexible screen. “Suggestion: these modifiers in trisilver, down spoilers?”

“You don’t think that’ll be too much? It seems a bit--showy,” Raindance said, though Sundor thought he liked the suggestion regardless.

“Humility and diffidence, typically scorned by Seekers. Skill and power, respected. Your value, far greater than your size.” Soundwave traced talon-tips thoughtfully over the flight-surfaces of those wings, and Raindance shivered a little in pleasure under the touch. “Soundwave: could begin initial outlines while we wait?”

Raindance glanced over to where Ratbat was still engrossed in the information terminal. His answer, Sundor surmised, was a foregone conclusion. It would have been difficult for even Sundor to say no, with hands like those on his wings. "I... uh, yeah, that sounds good," Raindance managed, arching up as well as he could into that gentle touch. 

The carrier dipped a brush - tipped with real organic fibers - into a small canister and withdrew it gleaming with quicksilver. "Aerial combats, encoded by edge irregularities," the carrier said, drawing the fine brush along the seekerframe's spoilers, mapping out the shapes of indicator stripes, the edges of each subtly scalloped. 

Raindance chirred. "Surely there weren't that many, Soundw-- ooh." He broke off as that tickling brush found a dense cluster of flight sensors. 

“Veteran airframes, rarely respect status of noncombatants,” his carrier pointed out firmly. “Your observations, valuable, resulted in actionable intel for wing tacticians.” He continued to work, carefully setting down the outlines of elaborate sigils as the seekerframe sighed and stretched out under the attention, wings and stabilizers quivering with pleasure.

“It’s not that I’m not proud of my function,” Raindance murmured. “I just don’t want them to think I’m claiming to be some kind of warframe. That could get us into all sorts of trouble …”

“Soundwave: will be careful,” the bigger mech promised, his talons gliding possessively over those small wings. “Your accolades, well documented, able to withstand scrutiny.” He traced another delicate line down the front of one wing, demarcating the sections that would later be filled with more elaborate patterns.

“Mmhmmmokay …” Draped strutlessly over his carrier’s lap, Raindance was obviously more than willing to concede the argument. They stayed that way for a time, Sundor watching as elaborate designs came to life under the carrier’s careful hands. The vivid colors and nanite activations would come later, he knew, when the little cohort had more time and privacy. Even so, he could easily imagine how arresting the end results would be; Raindance adorned with his accomplishments in brilliant silver and jeweled color, an eye-catching gem in the midst of a flock of larger airframes.

“That one!” Seekerframe and carrier both jerked in surprise, startled out of their reverie by Ratbat’s triumphant announcement. The little glideframe was hanging upside down from the top of the projector frame; the softlight interface, designed to accommodate the demands of different frametyles and aliens both, was obligingly scrolling its glyphs from bottom to top, having flipped them to match Ratbat’s current orientation. 

Ratbat tugged at a particular listing with wing-talons, pulling it out from the rest with a triple-tap of little claws. “This is the one we want. It’s perfect!”

Sitting up, Raindance peered at the upside-down line of glyphs, tilting his helm. “Courier-shuttle Ghostlight. Well, at least it isn’t a cargo freighter. Scheduled to leave in four orn for--what the frag? Ratbat, why the frag would we want to go *there*?”

The glideframe’s carrier also appeared a bit baffled, Sundor noted uneasily.

“Because it’s interesting! And efficient!” Ratbat retorted, jabbing a wing possessively at the glyphs. 

“It’s a mining outpost, Ratbat. The only interesting things out there are the heavy metals they pull out of the ice! And none of us have metallurgy or materials foci. How the slag is *this* is more important than staying in Vos?”  


The little glideframe bristled. He was obviously about to launch himself at his cohort-brother, only to be forestalled as Soundwave rose to his pedes. Approaching the projector, he righted the displayed glyphs with a flick of a talon, and considered Ratbat’s selection. “Ratbat’s choice, intriguing. Query: Triss cluster, of interest to studies?”

"Yes!" The glideframe paused, faceplates pinched. "No. Maybe. But I recognize this one!" 

Sundor couldn't make head nor tail of that bizarre statement. But the carrier and Raindance - who, at least, was no fool - seemed more contemplative. Or perhaps they were simply willing to humor the symbiont. 

"Four orn? It’s probably enough time, but if the meetings don't go well..." Raindance finished his fuel in a single swallow and dispelled the cube, then transformed to glide to a spot just over Soundwave's shoulder, plating flared in curiosity and annoyance both. For the first time, Sundor could see the carrier's carefully-delineated patterns as they would show on the seekerframe's primary alt -- bold, brutally beautiful, certain to catch the optic of any airframe.

Ratbat scrabbled at the glyphs, jabbing at various indicators for date and destinations. "Gonna be so efficient and interesting and awesome--" the glideframe's audials flicked and swivelled in his excitement. "Please can we, Boss?" 

The carrier contemplated his little cohort. "Soundwave, will discuss transportation with captain, pilot." He fixed Ratbat with a stern look when the glideframe squeaked his delight. "Soundwave: makes no promises. Triss cluster, very close to disputed territories."

The carrier reached to scritch one little audial, and must have said something further over private comm, because Raindance's bristled plating smoothed down, and the glideframe nodded more soberly. "Okay. But it really is gonna be great! And efficient. You'll see!"

The carrier vented quietly. Sundor wasn't sure what to think. A courier ship visited many worlds along its route, so if this vessel passed Soundwave's inspections, Sundor could travel to any number of planets and moons. On the other wing - what the frag? Something was going on here. And Sundor would bet his beak that it was something more than just a talented carrier and a demanding symbiont! 

It would have taken a far more jaded symbiont than Sundor to ignore a mystery like this. Slipping away from the slumbering bulk of the shuttlemech, Sundor followed the little cohort, shadowing their search for the Ghostlight.


	8. Chapter 8

Sundor had time for a little research.

He was no academic, but it didn't take a researcher to run a handful of nanocredit inquiries on the localnet. Buzzsaw was a flightframe of surprising age, though one whom Sundor had never met - not entirely unusual, given the darker symbiont's more scholarly specialties. Soundwave was very much as he seemed: a promising young carrier ... except for one irregularity. Perhaps as a jest of sorts, someone had listed one of the legendary ancients as among the members of his cohort, a patent absurdity. Sundor had been on the front lines of the war for the last several vorns, yes, but such a development would surely have reached his audials! 

Ghostlight was a small, fast ship, not primarily intended for the comfort of passengers. He was foundation-sparked, not explorer, and more than happy to stay within the confines of the empire, visiting the various planets and moons that made up his assigned rounds. As such, he lacked more than a rudimentary gravitational generator, leaving crew and visitors to either magnetize their pedes or deal with the navigational difficulties of weightlessness. Not that the lack of gravity bothered Sundor overmuch; if you asked him, keeping one’s pedes on the ground was highly overrated. 

That said, Ghostlight seemed intrigued by the prospect of passengers who had elected to remain online for the full duration of their voyage -- or perhaps he was simply eager for more varied company. He had even rearranged portions of his interior to suit the needs of the symbionts, much to the annoyance of his crew. Having already made all the arrangements for his passage, Sundor was idly watching two of them gripe about the placement of alcoves and other structures in the hallways to accommodate symbionts when the carrier finally boarded.

It was something of a relief to see the big carrier -- Sundor had begun to think the strange little cohort would miss the ship’s departure. Ghostlight had already left the stardock and had been circling Cybertron in a lackadaisical orbit, waiting for the shuttle pod to catch up with him to discharge passengers and last minute cargo. Soundwave emerged from the airlock, ducking his helm under the lintel, glideframe clinging possessively to one shoulder. His pedes magnetized to the decking of the small cargo hold with a heavy *clank*. He straightened, scanning the area with a carrier’s characteristic caution. Sundor glanced at the big mech and the bright-opticked glideframe, then away with affected disinterest. This curious little cohort might have influenced his decision on which ship to take, but that didn’t mean he was going to moon after just any carrier like some newsparked hatchling. His interest was purely academic, nothing more. 

"Fraggin’ -- ten entire Pit-damned mechanotons of scrap, don' see why we gotta - frag it, Ghostlight! Slagging technimals! " A heavy loadhauler stumbled over an unexpected series of grooves in the floor, just the right size for symbiont digits or talons to grip for purchase in a weightless environment. The load of cubes he was attempting to lash in place began drifting loose. The mech made a grab for them, missed. “Slagging--you couldn’t warn a mech?” he groused to the air. “Quoin, grab it, quick!” 

“Got it, got it, uh--” Quoin scrabbled up one wall, kicking off to grab a trailing tether. He caught it, folding digits down in a secure hold … only to have the cubes yank him off-course as their greater mass overwhelmed his own light-framed weight. “-uh-oh. A little help here? Whups!” Talons clinging to cargo strapping, the many-limbed mech flailed for a wall-hold. 

“ … I would move, if I were you,” a voice said above him. Sundor started, twisting his helm upwards--and almost fell off his perch as he came beak-to-faceplates with a bladeframe’s long fangs. He mantled, scrabbling for footing--how the slag had the other symbiont gotten so close without him seeing?--then had to dive out of the way with a flustered squawk as the drifting load of cubes and its attached crewmech banged against the wall next him. Wheeling precisely in the confined space, he latched on to another perch and swivelled his long neck to give the bladeframe a fulminating glare. 

Clad in ebony and silver, the bladeframe prowled along the ceiling with predatory grace, talons hooking tiny grooves and protrusions with unerring precision. Most ground-based frametypes didn’t particularly care for zero-g, if only because they had to devote an inordinate amount of time to force/direction calculations. They usually liked orientation reversals even less -- it took practice to learn to treat a direction as ‘down’ when every other mech behaved as if it were up or sideways. If the weightlessness bothered this particular bladeframe, however, it didn’t show. He tilted his helm at Sundor, field rippling with sardonic amusement. “Told you.”

“I don’t need your help,” snapped Sundor defensively. Carrier or no carrier, he was perfectly capable of looking after himself!

Flawless plating rippled in an unconcerned shrug. “If you say so.” Scarlet optics regarded the flightframe. “Waiting for someone?”

“No.” Sundor resettled himself on his perch, doing his best to recover his composure. His impromptu dive had left two secondary wingplates slightly out of alignment, and he tweaked them back into place, spreading the wing into full dazzling extension to inspect for any scratches that might have marred his golden finish. “Why? Are you?”

The other symbiont gave a rumbling, amused snort. “Hardly.” He glanced downward, where the carrier was picking his way through the organized chaos of the loading bay, sidestepping busy crewmecha with the overly-careful movements of a mech unfamiliar with the weightlessness of space and the bustle of a working ship. “Just staying out of the way.”

The big bladeframe certainly hadn’t bothered to stay out of *Sundor’s* way. Sundor sniffed. “Maybe you should wait somewhere else, then.”

“I find the present location agreeable enough,” the bladeframe stated, amused, as he leaped easily from ceiling to wall. “Sundor, correct? Of Termis 2.” 

“You’ve heard of me, then.” Sundor flared his plating a little, both proud and a little nostalgic. Termis was a glorious system, all irradiated sand and sun-blasted stone, shot through with almost every metal in the galaxy. There was nothing like soaring over the dunes in the first light of morning, when all the exposed veins caught the white sun’s rays. 

The bladeframe paced closer, each pede placement eerily silent. “So I have. Your exploits on Chiron were impressive.”

Sundor couldn’t help but preen, his mood instantly improved. “I had superb support for that mission. But yes, the Tr!klcctch were particularly--” a clatter arose from the cargo hold, followed by more cursing as the loadhauler attempted to drag his floating compatriot -- still clasping the net of cubes -- down from midair. The carrier’s strange little glideframe was cackling squeakily as he tried to clamber up Soundwave’s helm for a better view of the disturbance. “A most unusual mech -- do you know anything about him, by any chance?”

The bladeframe chuffed and seated himself on the wall, claws curled for purchase. “The carrier or the glideframe?” 

Sundor flicked his tail casually, as if his question was only a matter of idle interest. “Either, I suppose. It’s strange to see so many other Chroniclers on anything but a chartered flight, is all.” Nevermind, of course, that it had been Soundwave’s interest in this particular ship that had led Sundor here!

The bladeframe slanted Sundor an indecipherable look. “I may know a few things.”

Sundor tilted his helm sidelong, trying to gauge the bladeframe’s mood. Was the other symbiont being coy for a reason, or simply bartering information for information? “Are they that notorious?” The glideframe did seem strangely fractious especially for a mech from such a creator, and just from the data searches it was pretty clear that trouble seemed to follow Buzzsaw around … but really, how much trouble could an academic-focussed cohort get into? Even if the carrier wasn’t a statistician, as Sundor had previously assumed.

“Notorious?” The bladeframe considered the question. “Perhaps. Though ‘infamous’ might be more precise.” 

Sundor settled in for some gossip. “In what way?” Had this cohort offended a powerful patron? Or had somehow earned the Enforcers’ ire? They wouldn’t be the first Chroniclers to fall afoul of the law in the single-minded pursuit of new experiences, after all.

“Soundwave … attracts unique sparks,” the bladeframe said, and Sundor narrowed his optics, wondering at the carefully chosen words. “His cohort tends to be adventurous, dedicated to excellence in their chosen foci. Soundwave is a skilled carrier, an adept protector, and yet has never let his guardianship interfere with his cohort’s passions--even if those passions lead to unexpected places.” 

That was … not the answer Sundor had been expecting. He flicked his tailtip, tapping it consideringly against the metal of his perch. “That is … quite the endorsement. You almost sound as if you wish he were your carrier.”

The bladeframe gave an amused snort, standing and stretching elaborately, razor-edged plating rippling down the length of his frame from sensory spines to tail-tip. “Not a bit.” He began to make his way down the wall, towards the exit where, Sundor now noticed, the carrier had paused, as if waiting for someone. “I do not need to wish for what I already have, after all,” the bladeframe tossed over one shoulder, scarlet optics glinting.

“Well I--wait, what?” There had been no bladeframe listed among the members of this strange little cohort. No bladeframe--except for that one entry. The one Sundor had been sure was a joke, a sly gibe by a bored clerk or an overburdened AI. His optics spiralled wide. There was no way--

“Feel free to drop by our quarters anytime. Raindance speaks of you fondly,” Ravage said. Apparently taking Sundor’s stunned silence as agreement, he pushed off, twisting in midair to set talons upon the floorplates. His visored Templar gave Sundor a courteous nod; then the young carrier, his still-chortling glideframe, and his ancient bladeframe disappeared through the hatchway, leaving a flabbergasted Sundor in their wake.

 

******

 

Suns congregated densely here in the galactic heart, casting their diffuse light across Cybertron and its moons. Still, Ghostlight was fast; within a few joors the wandering planet had diminished to a silver marble in their wake, and then farther, until not even the ship’s telescopic lenses could distinguish it from the star-strewn depths of space. 

“Switch to forward view, please, Ghostlight?” 

The ship obliged Sundor, the small viewscreen flicking to front cameras, where a new star awaited him: the bluish point of a spacebridge, the ring of the huge stellar mechanism that folded space itself. Rylos was to be their first port, and while it didn’t have as much radiation as Sundor liked, it might not be entirely unsuitable. Tapping a few indicators with his beak, Sundor pulled up the planet’s data.

The hatch behind him hissed shut. “I heard you were aboard -- are you thinking about leaving us already? We haven’t even had a chance to swap any proper war stories yet!” 

Sundor twisted his neck around to glare at the Seekerframe, who glided over, hovering on antigravs above his shoulder. “These are my quarters. And I locked that hatch.”

Raindance rippled his plating, unrepentant, his field radiating mischievous good humor. “Maybe Ghostlight doesn’t want you leaving so soon either. Either that, or these lockpicking codes I acquired are better than I thought. Soundwave has been asking about you, you know. Why not stick around, let us get to know you? It’s been a long time.”

“And end up on an icy asteroid belt with a demented boltbat, a glitched ancient, and a carrier I can’t figure out? I don’t think so.” 

“Don’t forget the pyromaniac flightframe. And me,” Raindance said, ailerons flicking upwards in amusement. Besides, I doubt we’ll stay very long -- it won’t be so bad, really. Though I still don’t see why you’re avoiding Soundwave.”

Sundor found that his flightplates desperately needed attention, and turned to preen them with aggravated energy. “He’s far too young, for one thing.” Which was part of the reason why Ravage’s presence bothered Sundor almost as much as it intrigued him. A legendary ancient like Ravage simply didn’t choose an inexperienced carrier like Soundwave to be his Templar. Except that this one had. Why?

“A carrier’s age doesn’t matter that much. Not in the grand scheme of things. Besides, Soundwave’s really smart--he listens, and he learns fast,” Raindance protested. 

Sundor shook his wedge-shaped head. “It might not matter on Cybertron, but it will the first time he sees combat. The politics of squabbling laboratories aren’t anything like a war zone, you know that. What happens when your mechling has to defend his cohort for the first time? You’re risking not only your life, but all your hard-won memories and experience, and for what? All because you found a carrier willing to cater to your whims?” 

Ghostlight was picking up momentum now, increasing speed. His flightpath was clear, his spacebridge permissions in order, to judge by the unobtrusively scrolling status reports. Sparked ships often tended to be on the taciturn side, much like cityformers -- Ghostlight was apparently the exception that proved the rule, and all too happy to provide detailed travel updates. 

“Ravage and I can both compensate for that,” maintained Raindance stubbornly. “We have enough experience to keep the cohort out of trouble. Buzzsaw, too. That bird has more tactical hardware than he lets on. If you would just drop by and meet Soundwave...”

Sundor slumped. “Don’t tempt me.” He’d seen the skill with which that carrier attended to his cohort. Sundor’s own plating, perfect though it was, hadn’t had such attentions... in vorns, it felt like. Would one good waxing really do any harm? 

Of course it would. If not now, then later, when the carrier encountered a challenge he couldn’t handle, when he faltered in his primary purpose: as bulwark and shield. Newsparked symbionts perished all the time in the care of young carriers -- such was the hazard of being small and fragile in a universe of very large mecha and even larger threats. Sundor had already made one mistake in choosing Headroom; it had taken him several miserable vorn before he had been finally been desperate enough to leave his former master. He wasn’t about to make such a mistake again!

“You joined him eight vorns ago, and now war rages on every border. Tell me this, Raindance, has your so-young carrier taken you to the battlefields you once loved so well? Even once?”

The seekerframe was silent. Sundor turned his head away. 

“I have other skills,” Raindance protested, “Soundwave has always found fulfilling assignments for me -- for all of us. And this war isn’t exactly going to end in an orn. Soundwave isn’t even twenty vorn old, I’m sure he’ll--”

“To what use would he put the ability to deflect ordnance?” Sundor demanded pointedly. He shook his helm. “My place is in the thick of the fight, under a thousand different suns, carrying intelligence where no other mech can go. To be trapped in the dark of Cybertron ... no. I’ll not spend this conflict on the sidelines.” He turned stubbornly back to the planetary data. 

Raindance watched for a nanoklik. Then he vented and transformed, reaching out to grab the back of the mech-sized chair and pulling himself around awkwardly to crowd onto it beside Sundor. “Well, if I can’t change your mind, at least let me help. You definitely don’t want Rylos. Buzzsaw was there once, and he says...”

\----

Rylos was four jumps away from Cybertron; not far in the galactic sense, but still a fair distance, enough to make standard comm-transmissions impractical for communication and couriers necessary. Placing devices that warped space-time too near to each other was a recipe for catastrophe, as early bridge-builders had discovered, and now Cybertronian engineers made very sure the gates were at least several stellar systems apart. Unfortunately, this meant that ships still had a fair distance to cover before they could make the jump to their destination. It had taken Ghostlight the better part of two orn to traverse the first three spacebridges, given the required distance between them. 

The great spacebridge nearest Cybertron had been a pristine mechanism, a glorious example of Cybertronian engineering, perfectly maintained. Its coils stretched across dimensions, forming a highway both infinite and instantaneously everywhere, and the light of it was a flaming beacon.

The bridge just outside the Rylos system... was not nearly so fortunate. It had suffered several attacks by the Tr!klcctch over the past dozen vorns, small strike forces of saboteurs that had managed to slip by the patrols. Each time, the damage had been swiftly repaired, but the assaults had taken their toll. Ghostlight had waited almost an orn in orbit around some backwater planet -- the spacebridge operators had pushed back his departure authorizations, first citing technical difficulties, and then supplying no reasons at all. When the bridge finally came back online, it did so fitfully, its coiling, tunneled maw sputtering light. The dimensional gate seemed thin to Sundor, somehow, as if he could almost glimpse stars and space through the gradient rings. 

Way behind schedule, Ghostlight had finally been granted the go-ahead. Other ships, likewise delayed, held their places in line with ill-disguised impatience as their fellows vanished one by one into the spacebridge. 

“I don’t like the looks of it,” said Buzzsaw, optics glittering as he switched between spectrums, watching the scrolling data-feed from Control. “Those dimensional flares … they’re within tolerances, but just barely. If the variances get too wide ….”

"The bridge controllers ran a full test," Ghostlight said, obviously uneasy, but unwilling to lose his gate window. “They assured me the bridge connection is solid.” 

“I know, but--” Buzzsaw glanced back at the hatch to the lower deck and cargo hold, where Sundor had last seen the cobalt carrier checking on some crates. The small grouping of mecha who occupied Ghostlight’s main observation deck watched the approach of the spacebridge with varying degrees of impatience and boredom, but as far as Sundor could tell, none of them shared Buzzsaw’s concerns. He glanced over at the other flightframe. Buzzsaw was not usually a nervous mech; on the contrary, he seemed to relish danger. 

“What is it?” Sundor asked. 

“I don’t know. I can’t put a talon on it. The equations are solid, the numbers all add up--but the light frequencies are off. It shouldn’t make a difference, but--” The other flightframe shifted from pede to pede. “I’m gonna call Soundwave.”

Sundor nodded, even as the captain scowled at them, sensory spines bristling at the perceived insult to his partner. “If Ghostlight says its safe, it’s safe. We weren’t commissioned yesterday, you know. We know what we’re doing.”

“Yeah well, so do most of the scientists I work with, and I still watch them blow slag up on a regular basis,” Buzzsaw retorted. “I’m just gonna double-check my numbers with my carrier, Ghostie. Just in case, okay?”

“Do what you want, but I can’t delay any longer. I miss this gate window, and they’re going to bump us to the back of the queue again,” Ghostlight said stubbornly. “I gotta get these supplies and databanks through.” 

“I know, I know, I just--” the hatch behind them spiralled open, the heavy thump of Soundwave’s pedes announcing the carrier’s arrival onto the main deck. “Soundwave--wouldja look at these numbers for me? I feel like something’s off, but I just can’t see it …”

“Soundwave: acknowledges,” the carrier said, moving forward to join them. If Soundwave shared his symbiont’s unease, Sundor couldn’t tell. He bent over Buzzsaw’s terminal, one secondary cable uncoiling to politely link up to a nearby interface port, even as the spacebridge loomed impossibly large in Ghostlight’s screens, corona already reaching out to lick at the courier’s hull. The familiar sense of impending spacejump coiled at plating and circuits alike, the indefinable sensation of space at the edge of warping.

“See what I mean? The tests are all coming back solid, but there’s this weird phase-echo--”

“Anomaly, well spotted,” Soundwave told Buzzsaw. “Variances from standard patterns, minor … but widespread.” Sundor watched the carrier tilt his helm downward, optics flickering behind that scarlet visor as he pulled more data from Ghostlight and Control for comparison. “Light-echoes accompanied by faint gravitic traces … tracing origin. Spacebridge event horizon, distorting the data. Correlating, compensating for distortion …” Sundor watched tensely as the carrier’s field changed, curiosity fading to wariness, and then spiking into purest fear. Soundwave’s helm snapped up. 

“Ghostlight: abort ju--!” But it was too late. The shuttlemech had already nosed past the event horizon, engines burning as spacetime twisted around them, folding. The starbridge’s pent up energies discharged in a optic-searing burst of light. The pulse sent them flashing across infinite space--

\--and dumped them into a seething radioactive hell.

Ghostlight screamed, a reverberating shriek of surprised pain as most of his exterior sensory arrays were slagged into melted stumps. Viewports flashed into optic-searing brilliance, mecha ducking away, frantically shielding their sensors as they scrambled to compensate for the sudden glare. The courier’s hull groaned under the pressure of the gravity wash--distantly, Sundor could hear the shouts of dismayed mecha, the hissing sound of leaking coolant lines and sounds of tearing metal. 

Of them all, Sundor was the least affected, his systems kicking in automatically, absorbing the overabundance of light and sending it directly to charge his shields. A blink, and his optics had compensated for the overexposure, pinning down to filter out unnecessary frequencies. He launched himself nimbly from perch to viewport, bypassing the whited-out screens and staggering mecha as the ship lurched around him. Claws scrabbling on the ledge, Sundor twisted his long neck, the radiation streaming through the viewport’s strong field only fueling his shields. Pocked spacestone, a distant blue sun with three -- no, four large planets in close orbit... and hellfire that ate visibly at Ghostlight’s thick plating as the ship tumbled, adrift. “This isn’t Rylos! It’s, it’s--”

Then the vast curving horizon of a planet yawned into view, and Sundor’s fuel pumps stuttered. For before them, curled lazily around the gas giant that helped to anchor this spacebridge, filling space with deadly plasmic beauty... 

… was a solar wyrm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ceiling Ravage is watching you.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the cliffhanger -- just had to clean up this last section!  
> \-----

The creature didn’t seem to have even noticed their arrival, the ship far too small to attract its attention. It spread its massive corona-mantle, its thousand trailing plasmic tendrils licking outward as it grazed upon the electrical discharges in the gas giant’s upper atmosphere, oblivious to the tiny, sparked courier ship being pulled helplessly into its wake. Ghostlight wasn’t a deep-space explorer or a warframed battleship--his exterior plating had never been designed to withstand such an assault. It was a miracle they hadn’t been reduced to a cinder already--only the exit-gate’s distance from the planet had kept them from instant immolation.

“I don’t--it hurts--I don’t know what’s going on! Slapdash, help me!” Ghostlight cried desperately. “What is this? What’s going on--this isn’t supposed to be here!”

“It’s all right--we’ll get through this, I’ll fix this--” The captain pulled himself up from the floor, staggering as the ship lurched sickeningly under his pedes--then glimpsed the viewport for himself. “What did we hi--oh. Frag.”

“Belzagor.” Soundwave’s glyph was inflectionless. The system was abandoned and sterile, on the cusp of the galactic disk, far too close to the migrations of deep space leviathans. The spacebridge here should have been inoperable, should never have been targeted by the bridge operators as a suitable exit point for anything less than a warship. The carrier’s visor flickered rapidly as he drew on data from the docked portion of his cohort. “Ghostlight: system’s only gas giant once ringed by rocky asteroid belt, orientation--”

“I can’t fragging see!” the courier mech cried, his engines stuttering in pain and terror. They could all feel the backwash of the sparked ship’s fear, and Sundor knew it was well-founded. What good would it do them to enter an asteroid field? A moonlet or other large chunk of dense material might block the worst of the radiation, but even if Ghostlight somehow managed to escape the gravitational riptide of the wyrm, he would be flying blind. They would be pummeled to pieces by all the smaller debris in the belt long before they reached any kind of shelter.

“I can,” Sundor blurted, the golden radiance of him now a light that reflected off every other mech’s plating.

The carrier glanced down; Buzzsaw’s helm whipped around. There was a bare instant of of communication between them. And then Buzzsaw launched himself from his precarious perch, diving straight for Sundor. _//Raindance says you’ve shielded him before. We’re gonna go be Ghostlight’s optics. Come on!//_ The other flightframe’s glyphs crackled, warped by the radiant energies that flooded them all.

 _//What? I meant that I can see from hereeaaagh!//_ Dark talons clamped onto bright as Sundor tried to figure out whether to defend himself. Tangling Sundor with claws and tail both, Buzzsaw yanked them both upwards, towards the emergency hatch located just above. Pinging the emergency overrides--and how the frag had he gotten those anyway?--Buzzsaw shoved both of them through the opening as it irised open. The interior shield snapped shut, even as the outer hatch blew, venting both atmosphere and flightframes out into open space.

 _//ARE YOU MAD??!//_ Sundor howled as Buzzsaw snapped his beak closed on an exterior flange, the sudden tension swinging Sundor up against the side of the ship. His shields adapted on the fly even as he flailed for a talon-hold, rapidly rising to fullest charge despite the mass of the second flightframe. The golden halo now encompassed them both, repelling energy and scouring spacedust alike. Buzzsaw’s optics whirred and clicked as the mechanisms adjusted to viewing the world from inside a reverse variance shield -- the faster and smaller a wave or particle was, the more strongly it was warded away, allowing Sundor to touch down easily on a solid surface even as he deflected bullets. _//You can’t -- the gravity -- Buzzsaw, this is a *solar wyrm* for frag’s sake!//_ His golden wings and pedes scrabbled at Ghostlight’s fiery-hot plating.

 _//Won’t know until we try,//_ Buzzsaw maintained stubbornly, gripping fiercely as he pulled them along, buffeted by wildly fluctuating gravitational forces. The solar wyrm roiling below was a superdense creature, all radiant energies wrapped around a core that rivaled the mass of most moons. It trailed a gravitational wake that could itself tear a ship asunder, a riptide of destabilized space. They had to get out of it soon, or none of them would survive.

It was a fool’s objective, an impossible goal--and also the only chance they might have. Sundor did his best to help maneuver them to the vantage Buzzsaw wanted, their wings useless without an atmosphere to push against. If they tumbled into empty space now, their small onboard thrusters would never overcome the gravity tide, not enough to reach the ship again. _//Even if your sensors are good enough to see all the fluctuations, Ghostlight isn’t in any state to use that data!//_ If all his processors were still intact and given plenty of time to transform the input, he probably could. But a symbiont’s sensors didn’t generate the same kind of information that a ship’s did, and Ghostlight was practically fritzing with panic, and--

 _//That’s true--good thing I have a carrier,//_ Buzzsaw smirked, snagging another slowly-melting fin, anchoring himself.

 _//Soundwave knows navigation conversion coding for a shipformer?//_ Sundor asked disbelievingly. It was a complex, rare, and massively calculation and storage-intense discipline. Ships carried dedicated navigational drives for a good reason. What possible use would a historian have for that kind of--?

_//Nope. Raindance is teaching him now.//_

_//WHAT?!//_

The two symbionts had reached the forward projection of Ghostlight’s hull. From here, they could see everything -- the irradiated gas giant, the asteroid belt and distant solar system beyond... and the vast and undulating wyrm, optic-searing even through the shield, more fiery-bright than even Sundor himself. Its great mantle rippled, long plasmic tendrils combing through the layers of gas and energy beneath it, sieving up the substance of the planet to feed its devouring hunger. _//This should be good enough. Keep an optic on the wyrm; comm whatever data you can get to Soundwave. All of it. Seriously, kay?//_ Buzzsaw flared delicate spines and plating, exposing sensors more adapted for use in a physics laboratory than space.

All of it? Everything he could push across his comms? To a carrier who was undoubtedly already distracted with the complex datasets Raindance was feeding him? _//You’ve gotta be --//_ The wyrm roused with a leviathan’s deceptively lazy speed, its mantle rippling with a billion shades of radiation as it moved to seek out a better place from which to feed. _//Oh, frag!//_

_//Incoming -- hold on!//_ The ship beneath them heaved upwards, spiralling sickeningly as the gravity swell hit, skewing Ghostlight’s original course even further. Both flightframes dug talons and beaks into plating and protrusions, clinging fiercely to the hull. Even as Ghostlight rocked blindly beneath them, Sundor could feel Buzzsaw reach out, yanking him into a wide-banded channel. There was the barest fraction of hesitation, of encryption keys exchanged and handshakes made--and then Sundor was in. Buzzsaw’s communications were clear, precise and unafraid for all his excitement, and Sundor could feel the data already feeding from symbiont to carrier, streaming by at a ferocious rate. Raindance was there too, a distracted presence so deeply in communion with his carrier that he did not even seem to notice the new arrival. By comparison, Ravage and Ratbat were mere shadows on the edge of the channel, waiting and watchful. While Soundwave--

\--Soundwave was their foundation, holding them all together, and at the same time a primal, devouring pull at their heart. He effortlessly took in every bit of data both the symbionts and Ghostlight could give him, processing it, integrating, running analyses even as he reassured the frantic shuttlemech and directed his cohort. Carriers were made for multithreaded inquiries, for handling vast amounts of data. Even the newest sparked hatchling symbiont knew that. But this--Soundwave was learning an entirely new skillset, and simultaneously applying that skillset to the enormous range of information types being sent to him by Buzzsaw, even as he sieved out false positives and null data and forwarded his confirmed results to Ghostlight, directing the blinded shipformer with authoritative expertise. Even more than that--he was *still* asking for more data! Sundor could feel the ping of those demands over the channel, insistent inquiries for more sensor feeds, for Sundor to add his arrays to Buzzsaw’s and provide Soundwave a more accurate picture of the threat they faced.

Another lurching wash flattened him to Ghostlight’s hull as a stray plasmic tendril idly flickered in their direction. Shaking away his amazement, Sundor got down to the business of survival, opening up all his senses to Soundwave’s shared channel. It wasn’t as efficient as a hardline or a cohort bond, but it was the only option they had. The carrier took the data as fast as the Sundor and Buzzsaw could transfer it, seeing through their optics, sensing the solar wyrm’s shifts and the intense gravitic fluctuations that rippled out with its every movement. Sundor’s shield protected the two flightframes from the radiation bombardment that beat against Ghostlight’s hull, but was no bar to reading its peaks and lulls, the undercurrents of that terrible solar wake. And dimly, like a distant echo, the symbionts could hear Soundwave communicating with Ghostlight, cajoling, reassuring, providing the blinded mech the information he needed to save them all.

Ghostlight’s big spacefaring engines snapped and sputtered, jolting the symbionts with sudden acceleration. But they seemed to be stabilizing, no longer spinning aimlessly. Sundor snaked his neck around the curve of Ghostlight’s forward projection, keeping the wyrm in his view. Its flame-bright mantle rippled again, dancing with solar flares, unspeakably beautiful. The next compressing, sucking wave hit them, a shiver through the fabric of space--but this time Ghostlight rolled to meet it head-on, presenting the smallest possible cross-section to the cataract. It was terrifying, thrilling, hanging suspended over the violet-green orb of the planet, the wyrm a liquid arc that cupped it, golden like the heart of a sun.

Ghostlight’s engines fired again, turning them, and then the backdraft hit -- a swelling, shuddering heave that jolted through every joint of Sundor’s frame despite the shielding. He could feel the plating groan in protest beneath his talons. Broadside to the wyrm, Ghostlight rode that wave upwards, spiraling, a flake of rust in a gale. It was a dance on the edge of a blade -- too far into the choppy heave, and the already-stressed ship would be torn apart. Too close to calmer space, and all the strain Ghostlight had already taken would be for naught, would gain them less than they’d lost.

Their ascent was perfectly timed, calculated and recalculated for pinpoint precision. Ghostlight fired his engines just so, in brief timed bursts, keeping them on course and in the best part of the tide. The wave carried them ten thousand filum, propelling them out towards the rocky bands. The next one pushed them them even farther.

They were going to make it. As impossible as it seemed, they’d make it to the asteroids in just a few klicks. Ghostlight had the agility to weave his way through most fields without undue difficulty; provided his plating held up, they’d....

And then one of the shipformer’s engines went out.

Sundor felt the hissing shudder rock through the hull beneath him, the vibrations that would have been a high-pitched whine if empty space transmitted sound -- metal fatigued by massive radiation exposure, and pushed beyond tolerances. Ghostlight’s cry echoed over all the commlines, a spike of pure terror.

Soundwave’s core-steady input intruded, cutting through that panic. _//Engine housing, will be repaired. Slapdash, Quoin, already gathering necessary parts. Ghostlight: heading 6.438501, correct pitch to negative y14.2.//_

_//I--I can’t! Not without--//_

_//You can. Maneuvering thrusters, all that is necessary. Place second engine on standby; solar wyrm's wake will provide necessary impetus.//_ Soundwave’s comms were open, his glyphs utterly certain, leaving no room for argument. _//Correct pitch on my mark.//_ A brief pause, and Sundor concentrated fiercely on the solar wyrm behind them, straining optics and sensor arrays to their utmost, waiting for the next crosscurrent surge …. there!

Soundwave’s priority flag was immediate, rocketing across the commlines. _//NOW.//_

Ghostlight obeyed blindly, firing his maneuvering thrusters in sequence. He nosed up, rolling--and the wave of charged particles caught the ship on its underside, pushing against the broad surfaces of the shuttlemech’s wings, flinging them away, further from the sucking draw of the wyrm’s gravitic pull and into the asteroid belt. Buzzsaw and Sundor hung on as the ship beneath them jerked, tumbling--

And then the slagged remnants of the sensor array snapped underneath their talons.

Damaged metal sheared away, fragments whipping away in all directions, and Sundor cried out as great chunks of shrapnel scored his faceplates and wings. Flung into empty space, tumbling wildly, they both watched Ghostlight accelerating away from them. He activated his tiny thrusters, feeling Buzzsaw do the same, even knowing how useless it was; they’d never be able to catch up. And if they dropped out of comm range --!

_//Soundwave!//_

_//Master!//_

His and Buzzsaw’s frantic calls overlapped, Sundor gripping the other flightframe tightly. Buzzsaw didn’t stand a chance against the radiation still beating against Sundor’s protective shielding. But his shield wouldn’t protect them nearly as well against the lower velocity debris that composed the rocky belt; already small pebbles and half-molten bits of rock were peppering their plating, scoring the thin surfaces of their armor. _//Master!//_ he heard Buzzsaw call again, reaching out through the comm channel. And, Sundor guessed, through their narrower cohort-bonds as well. _//Soundwave, we’re here, heading 458.6 mark 2--we need help! Master!//_

 _//Soundwave: acknowledges,//_ came the reply, sure and steady. _//Assistance, on the way.//_

Sundor held on to that assurance, even as he watched Ghostlight growing smaller by the klik. Had they gotten the second engine back online? Deprived of Buzzsaw and Sundor’s optics, how would Soundwave guide the blinded shuttlemech back to them even if they had? What if--

Then the blue-white flare of engines sparked against the stark shadow of a fragmented, tumbling moonlet. A familiar blue and white winged form streaked away from the ship, heading unerringly for the tumbling flightframes.

 _//Someone call for a pickup?//_ Raindance commed cheerily.

Sundor sagged in relief, even as he gaped. The radiation was intense, despite the distance now between them and the wyrm. This much gamma radiation could do permanent damage to thin plating, and... how could Soundwave even think of sending his cohort into such a hellstorm without shields?

But as the Seekerframe jetted nearer, Sundor’s sharp optics picked out something else -- a curving arc of metal, something clasped in the jet’s forward grappling hook. It wasn’t until Raindance drew closer that Sundor could make it out: nothing but a sheet of plain lead insulation, peeled from the casing of a storage cube. _//You came out here with *that!?*//_ Sundor demanded, eyeing its mass, judging the power of his own shields. _//You’d better not be planning on hauling it back with us....//_

Raindance laughed across the comms and let the sheet fly free, even as he swooped to catch up the two flightframes in a happy tangle of free-floating flightplates, tails, and wingflaps. Sundor’s personal shield covered them all -- just barely, and as soon as he got out of the full glare of the wyrm, his range was certain to shrink. Fortunately, all three symbionts were of accord. _//Gotta get you two back quick,//_ Raindance commed, as he wheeled on a wingtip. _//Soundwave already plotted a course from your observations, and we got one of Ghostlight’s short range scanners back up, kinda, but it’s gonna be a rocky ride in. Buzzsaw, get your tail outta my secondary thruster, for Primus’s sake.//_

The dark flightframe chirred a laugh that Sundor could feel vibrate through his plating. Sundor twisted his neck back to look once more at the great planet and the creature that fed from it, a legend among every spacefaring race, a behemoth of energy so rare that Sundor had never expected to see one... and certainly never so close!

And then they were accelerating, hurrying to catch up with the ship. They followed along as Ghostlight caught the gravity well of the moonlet and nosed carefully behind the icy chunk of rock, his plating visibly pocked from collisions and half-slagged where delicate arrays had been burned away.

The crew could make temporary repairs there, and more permanent ones from orbit around on one of the safer moons in this system. Ghostlight’s self-repair nanites and systems would help a great deal as well... if he had the energon. A sudden thought struck Sundor, and he tightened his grip on Raindance’s plating. _//How far away are we from the nearest port?//_

Buzzsaw flicked his plating in a small shrug, tilted his helm as though listening. _//I dunno. Oh. Probably about eight, nine orns, depending on how fast we can limp along.//_

 _//Eight or nine *orns*?//_ Sundor repeated. _//I-- Is Ghostlight even carrying that much fuel?//_

 _//Maybe.//_ Buzzsaw shrugged. _//But Soundwave’s prolly got enough. Primus knows he packed enough of Quasar’s supplements and energon for a troop of warframes. Says he likes to be prepared for any disaster with us around. Dunno why.//_

 _//You -- you packed -- wait. *What*?//_ Sundor demanded. Who in their right processors went on an unplanned vacation... and brought along enough fuel for the entire ship?

The flight back was long and weaving, even at the best speed Raindance could maintain in an asteroid belt, and Sundor began to fear that his overburdened shield would fail under the pressure of deflecting so much dust and small debris. But at long last, the emergency hatch loomed in front of them again, Buzzsaw signalling the outer doors to open. It was a tight fit as they squeezed into the airlock together. Atmosphere flooded in and brought tingling warmth to chilled extremities, and then the interior hatch opened into the ship.

Soundwave waited for them all, talons and cables spread to catch them. Trembling with residual fear and electrical adrenaline, he and Buzzsaw both tumbled downward into the big carrier’s hands as Raindance soared gracefully free. They were still entangled, talons clinging to each other convulsively, as if they’d forgotten how to let go. Soundwave bowed his helm over them both, cradling them with infinite care, secondaries stroking over scratched and dented plating, checking for injuries. This close, Sundor could feel the deeper emotions under the calm authority of that field: a carrier’s fear intermingled with pride and relief. “Buzzsaw, Sundor: both did well,” Soundwave said, holding them both wrapped close. Dizzy with emotion, Sundor didn’t object. Right now, it didn’t seem to matter that Soundwave wasn’t his carrier.

Mecha rushed by in the background, crewmembers hauling parts and supplies, scurrying in well-trained haste to repair what they could. Someone -- the captain -- barked a question; Ghostlight replied. All of it was lost in the intensity of the moment, the deeply calm warmth of the carrier’s field, the heat that stole into his limbs and aching wings.

“Sundor, badly injured?” Soundwave inquired after a moment, loosening his grip.

Remembering his dignity, Sundor forced himself to let go of Buzzsaw. Climbing to a more dignified perch upon one gauntlet, he ran a swift series of checks on his systems. “Minor damage, nothing more,” he said in relief. His topcoat, though, was a mess--pitted and scored, streaked with scratches from the jagged pebbles and Buzzsaw’s claws, and smeared with soot from Ghostlight’s hull. His talons were burred where he had clutched at melting metal too hard -- in his panic, he hadn’t even felt them scorching, but now they all hurt. Twisting his long neck, he mantled his wings forward, clicking in dismay at what he saw. “My wings …” He looked even more awful than he felt!

Ghostlight’s speakers crackled. “Uhm. Hey, little guys? Thanks. I mean … I don’t think I’d have gotten out of there without you. I’m sorry I fritzed out. I hate to ask for even more help, but if someone could spot for debris while we get some more arrays online....”

Sundor drooped, exchanging glances with Buzzsaw. Again?

Raindance chirred a laugh as he executed a barrel roll, his smallest thrusters stirring a breeze through the cabin. “I’ll be out there in just a klick, big guy. I’m all fuelled up, no worries. How’s the radiation?”

“Just two hundred percent over background, near as I can tell,” the courier said with very evident relief.

Soundwave fixed his seekerframe with an exacting look. “Soundwave: wishes to check for--”

“I know,” said Raindance, happily. “But I’ve got too much charge to sit still right now. That was so exciting!”

It kind of was, Sundor had to admit, as the carrier exchanged a few more comms. Or it would be later, once he had time to calm down and allow the remnants of fear to recede safely into memory. And had the chance to repair his plating -- what a mess. He hadn’t been this scratched up since... Naabrox, at least! Did he even have enough dent filler to repair all this? To his surprise, Soundwave simply nodded and turned to leave the observation deck, clearly and implicitly trusting Raindance’s judgement and his flying skills. Come to think of it, he was surprised that Soundwave had let the seekerframe out into the radiation at all, makeshift scrap of a shield or no. Sundor knew that Raindance had enough experience to fly in hazardous conditions, of course, but young carriers--

“Wait. Where are we going?” Sundor snaked his head around as the hatch to his tiny quarters passed them by.

Soundwave kept walking, even as those visored optics tilted down to regard the flightframe on his gauntlet. “Our efforts, impossible without Sundor’s aid. Damage to wings and frame, Soundwave’s responsibility. Soundwave: would like to make amends, if Memory-keeper Sundor permits?”

Riding on his carrier’s far shoulder and still twined with a secondary cable, Buzzsaw chortled. “Someone’s gonna get pool~ished.” The other flightframe was oblivious to his own pockmarked, soot-streaked appearance, near as Sundor could tell. But then, given what he’d seen from Buzzsaw’s bio, he probably considered that a normal state of affairs. Still, the offer seemed to be genuine, an impression backed up as Buzzsaw twisted his helm around to add, “Seriously, we kinda got you into this mess. Least we can do is buff out some of those scratches and fix you up a bit. And it’s not like you don’t have the time. We’re gonna be out here a while.”

Sundor hesitated. Letting a strange carrier handle his wings and take care of his hurts was not strictly proper … but what would be the harm? It was not as if Sundor were abandoning his own master’s attentions in favor of Soundwave’s, after all. Compared to the the prospect of enduring his current dingy, tattered appearance until they could get to a port, allowing Soundwave to pamper him a bit sounded really good.

“... all right,” he conceded. “I suppose an extra pair of hands would be useful.” Especially ones as talented as Soundwave’s. Not that he was going to tell the big carrier that!

“Sundor’s forbearance, appreciated,” Soundwave replied gravely, pinging open the hatch to their quarters. Sundor looked around with interest as they stepped inside. The cabin was hardly larger than his own, with just one narrow recharge berth and minimal other furnishings. What few personal items the cohort had been using were neatly tucked away in a transparent cabinet. Which, given the way Ghostlight had been pitching about earlier, was probably a good thing.

Soundwave seemed to have most everything in his subspace anyway, to judge by the bottle of solvent and the microfiber cloths he drew out. Three secondaries and a primary attended to Buzzsaw even as the carrier seated himself on the narrow berth -- the dark flightframe spread his wings and chirped in delight as the wetted cloths daubed and stroked at the char and dust, and supported him when he went limp. Sundor eyed the other flightframe suspiciously; surely a mere washing couldn’t be so goo--

\--ooh. Oh, Vector Sigma. The microfibers were soft as clouds, as organic feathers, the solvent pre-warmed by Soundwave’s hands. Other cable tips whirred as they transformed, slender blades slitting down into miniature detailing picks and scrapers. Flecks of ash flaked away from his frame, droplets of dirty solvent drifting weightless, all of them carefully caught up by more damp cloths before they could foul the air. More cabletips snaked around the base of his wings -- how many manipulators did this carrier *have*? Sundor tried to unscramble his vocalizer routines to warn the young carrier to be careful, but gentle sonic vibrations were already filtering down into his sensory beds, in exactly in the right spots. It was exquisite, a massage that was both arousing and unbelievably relaxing, and he suddenly understood why Buzzsaw had gone strutless.

Sundor’s own hydraulics seemed to have developed problems, come to think of it.

He loosened his exterior armor, plates spreading in an effort to attract more of that wonderful attention. It was delivered with interest, careful scrapes loosening the worst of the grime, followed by downy cloths that wicked the rest away. Somehow, he’d ended up slumped on his back in the crook of Soundwave’s arm, held carefully in place by still more cables and by gentle talons, all of them stroking and cleaning. Sundor didn’t even notice as the carrier carefully pressed the dents from his armor -- normally an uncomfortable procedure. He realized that his optics had shuttered only when talon-tips began stroking and smoothing his audials, and the fine spines of his crest.

Sundor blinked down. His toes tingled. Each dirtied cloth had vanished, and now pristine ones were slicking a fine coat of primer oil over his scratched but very clean and carefully-buffed plating. Other cables attended to each of his talons, first coating the little blades with a numbing gel, then cradling them to scour away the bits of Ghostlight’s hull that had adhered there. Another dense weave of cables attended to Buzzsaw, splayed out over the carrier’s lap. A movement caught the corner of Sundor’s optic -- Soundwave was withdrawing several distinctive canisters from subspace, magnetizing each to the edge of the berth within easy reach.

Sundor wriggled, trying to find the commands for his vocalizer.

“Sundor, is experiencing discomfort?” the carrier asked quietly, pausing his attentions.

“Err-- I... wha...” Sundor rebooted, tried again. “No. But my shields... they require specialized surface nanites. Paint will just...”

Somewhere within his tangled cradle of cables, Buzzsaw chortled.

“Those nanites, among our supplies,” Soundwave easily, still stroking gently over Sundor’s flared sensory spines. A primary cable curled around a canister, popping the seal so that the flightframe could see the subtle golden glow of the nanite solution inside. “Our choices, satisfactory?”

Inspecting the outside of the canister as well as the contents, Sundor had to admit that it was. It was not quite the same solution he typically used, but this formulation was of comparable quality, and obviously brand new. Suspicion creeped in through his lethargic haze. None of Soundwave’s cohort had any of the shielding hardware that required energy absorption nanites like these. So why did Soundwave even have them? “They are … very satisfactory,” Sundor said slowly, turning his helm to eye the big carrier warily. “But why would you waste your allotment on nanites like these? These formulations are very specialized, Soundwave. Not to mention hard to find.”

Soundwave’s confident mask slipped, a subtle tinge of embarrassment creeping into his field. For the first time, he looked like the young carrier he was. “Soundwave: persuaded to seek out these supplies. Cohort consensus, nanites suitable ... as a courting gift?” he said slowly, as if uncertain how this information might be received. A certain amount of wry humor seeped into that monotone as Soundwave added, “this situation, unforeseen.”

Cradled by the carrier’s cables, his armor gleaming from Soundwave’s attentions, Sundor felt as if he’d been knocked tumbling once more. Raindance and Ravage both had been very clear in their encouragement, of course, but Soundwave had never said … never even approached … wanted to court him? And in the old way, with the presentation of tangible proof that the symbiont would always be cared for, always treasured? Which wasn’t that strange, of course; given his age, his unusual skills, and his beauty, Sundor was used to having his pick of suitors.

Sundor did his best to think. It wasn’t easy, not with blissful, strutless lassitude still coiling through every part of him. He glanced to Buzzsaw, who seemed worried for the first time since all this started. “Raindance put him up to it,” the dark flightframe hedged. “Well, all of us did, really, once we heard about your adventures together. With Raindance, I mean.”

Such a young carrier’s interest should have been patently absurd. Had they been on Cybertron, Sundor would undoubtedly have rejected any such offer out of wing. As he should be doing now, nanites or no nanites.

And yet … when all their lives were in danger, Soundwave had taken command without hesitation. He hadn’t panicked, or reverted to core coding and protected his symbionts at the expense of the ship and himself. Instead he had decided what had needed to be done, and then trusted his cohort--and himself--to do it to the best of their considerable ability.

Sundor blinked, as a few of the puzzle pieces clicked into place. He peered suspiciously up at the carrier. “This ... is the first time you’ve had to make a courting gift, isn’t it?”

Soundwave’s visor dipped, a faint nod.

No gifts were given in courtship to the First; neither Buzzsaw nor Raindance seemed like mecha who had much use for physical belongings. Or tradition, for that matter. And Ratbat... well. It seemed that the largesse went the other way around, if Ratbat’s creator was the source of all that energon.

For all his other abilities, Soundwave had never really courted a symbiont before now. It was unbelievably charming, touching. And pride-inducing, because Sundor was very much worthy of such gifts, and he could not deny his pleasure at this carrier’s recognition of that. Soundwave might be young, but Sundor could not fault his taste.

Sundor’s crest flattened briefly, then flared for each one of those still gently scritching talons. The golden flightframe relaxed against Soundwave’s plating, unkinking each link of his shining tail. “I have rarely seen a finer one,” he said, “and am honored to accept.”

Soundwave reset his vocalizer with a quiet crackle. “Accept?”

The golden flightframe stretched a little, offering up his plating. “The nanites. As a courting gift.” He peered coyly at the big carrier. “Unless the events of the past cycle have led you to reconsider?”

“Negative,” was the immediate reply, Soundwave making no attempt to hide his relief and his pleasure. “Sundor’s bravery and skill, remarkable.” He bowed his helm slightly, the acknowledgment of a young templar to a far older memory-keeper. “Soundwave: honored by your consideration.” Attaching the nanite canister to the berth frame along with all the rest, Soundwave reached out with a secondary cable, delicately picking up a tapered silicon-fiber brush and dipping it into the waiting solution. “Sundor: has preferences as to color?”

“Hmm.” The nanites were every shade of gold, but it was possible to vary their hue and intensity by layerings or the application of subtle electric charges. Sundor could have told Soundwave in precise detail what he preferred, but why not give this ambitious young carrier a bit of a challenge? “I leave it to you, Soundwave; do whatever you feel is best,” he said finally, relaxing back into those cables. There was, of course, always the possibility that he might end up wearing some garish and obvious result. Still, the memory of Raindance’s wings made him want to see what Soundwave would do if left to his own devices.

Soundwave nodded, and went to work, cabletips continuing to massage oil into overstressed joints, even as that brush glided over his flightplates in sensuous, long strokes. Sundor soon slipped back into lazy bliss, lulled by the familiar whorls and sweeps of the brush against the sensitized surface of his plating, the cool slick feel of the nanite solution as it was applied, warming as it bonded to his topcoat. Careful cables nudged him into new positions as needed, applying targeted vibration to parts twisted just out of alignment, easing over-taut cables loose again. Sundor was dimly aware that Soundwave seemed to be taking a great deal of time over each wing, but at the moment, he couldn’t bring himself to care. Such attentions were marvelous, sweet beyond mere words, and Sundor’s field reflected his languorous pleasure, echoing in the deep, illuminative harmonic concordance of the carrier’s own field.

Gentle cables handled him, turned him, as if to shift him from his back to his underchassis. Sundor unshuttered his optics -- when had he closed them? Had he actually been lulled into recharge after so much excitement? -- and blinked. The brush was poised above him, illuminated for a moment in a stray shaft of light from the port window, each spun fiber of silicon blazing as golden-orange as a young sun.

Sundor blinked again, lifted his head.

From primary flightplates down to the breastplates, his wings *shimmered*. Not merely golden, no, but rather every solar color known to mecha, the auric glow bolstered by flaming oranges, vivid greens, supersaturated violet hues. Subtle patterns swirled through that brightness, giving life and movement to Sundor’s once-flat golden coat. The ripples and tendrils of color seemed to dance with every ventilation, their hues reflecting boldly from the inky, deep-space black that Soundwave was still applying to Buzzsaw’s own plating.

He was a living flame, a bold and brilliant jewel, a thing beyond price. Or... no, not a jewel, not exactly. Sundor curled a flightplate a little closer, tilting his helm. From just the right angle, if he held the curling metallic flames in just the right light....

“Sundor: pleased with result?” Soundwave asked, pausing in his ministrations, the barest hint of worry perturbing the depth of his field.

Sundor’s faceplates had not been designed to smile, but that could not prevent his awe and gratitude from suffusing every part of his field. Painted in subtle swirls, the radiance of the solar wyrm coiled over his plating in all its flaming glory, as beautiful as it was deadly, a declaration of utmost bravery. It took Sundor several moments to tear his gaze from his intricate new topcoat. He turned his narrow, elegant helm to regard the young carrier. “I … truly am,” he said quietly, at a loss to put words to this sudden swell of emotion.

Soundwave didn’t seem to mind the faint praise, though. His talons returning to stroke carefully over the flightframe’s glowing plating, even as he angled Sundor to reach a new spot. And Sundor …

… cradled by the young carrier’s affection, Sundor could not help but wonder what other surprises Soundwave had in store.

 

*****

 

Inevitably, their shared memory began to dissolve into the present, a little at a time, growing ragged at the edges. No matter how Flipsides tried to cling to that moment - the warmth, the remembered beauty and the companionable closeness - the experience kept dimming, growing soft and indistinct. Finally, it dissipated entirely.

It left in its wake, just for a moment, a scene at once familiar - the darkened confines of Soundwave's cargo interior, lit by the subtle glow of indicators and running lights, and crowded with five symbionts piled over and around one another in a jumble of limbs - and beyond strange. Voices murmured, somewhere just past hearing. The shadows twisted, seething with figures, each there and then gone. They were too quick and edgeless to make out, haunting, confusing and shapeless.

Flipsides came online with a start. But the shapes and sounds were gone, leaving everything as it should be, as Flipsides scanned for whatever had disturbed the memory transmission. "Oh," the mechkin said, blinking, and then his plating spreading in the shadow of a smile. Ratbat had slipped into recharge mid-transfer, the little bat slumped improbably against Soundwave's padded interior, one wing splayed, head craned back. Flipsides reached to rearrange the little symbiont, and narrowly escaped being kicked in the process.

"...giant purple gryphon...." Ratbat snuffled for no reason Flipsides could imagine, as the mechkin drew him into a more natural curl. Two sets of matched crimson optics lit in the warm, close darkness.

"Is he..." Flipsides paused, thinking on what he'd seen. The portion of the memory that was Sundor's had been normal, well-archived. But there at the end...

Buzzsaw clacked his beak quietly in amusement. "Ratbat doesn't so much suffer from insanity as enjoy every klik of it. I once watched him carry on a joor-long conversation with a lamp post."

“It most certainly was not an entire joor,” Laserbeak snaked his head around. “Buzzsaw exaggerates.”

Flipsides giggled, then covered his mouth, surprised at the sound. Laughter hadn’t been a big part of his world the last few vorn. “I thought -- I mean. I don’t think he....”

“Finds you compatible?” Laserbeak said bluntly, his optics tilting in the dark. “Approves of you? Likes you?” Flipsides hunched a little, embarrassed and desperately wishing he had Ravage’s talent for disappearing in plain sight.

Buzzsaw chortled. “Flipsides, Ratbat doesn’t approve of *anybody.* Soundwave knows that. We approve of you, and that’s good enough for him.” If, that was, the mechkin could calm down enough to allow the big carrier court him properly....

“Mmn. Do not worry about Ratbat. It is your approval that Soundwave seeks, not the other way around,” Laserbeak said reassuringly, and in the darkness, a supple tail wound around the mechkin’s thighplate in a serpentine embrace.

“Yup. We’ve got the rest of that memory, too,” Buzzsaw murmured, as a wing cupped behind Flipsides’s back, both flightframes moving closer, their frames a banked heat against the mechkin’s plating. “Sundor made sure to leave it with all of us, before …”

Before he left, Flipsides thought. Left a master he loved, in order to protect both Soundwave and his cohort-brothers. But he had given the others that memory of warmth and tender discovery, to share in the hard times to come. They had chosen to share it with Flipsides as well, and that said more than words ever could. The last of his fear faded away in a wash of affection and gratitude, and Flipsides reached out, stroking tenderly over the two flightframes’ wings and supple, sinuous backs. “Thank you,” he said quietly. “I … I would like that a lot.”

**Author's Note:**

> Glossary:
> 
> sparkling, hatchling: infant, baby  
> mechling: subadult, can range from toddler to teenager  
> youngling: all-purpose term for any subadult Cybertronian, human equivalent: kid, child
> 
> mechanoton=1.247 tons  
> mechanometer: about 6 feet  
> micron: 1 millionth of a mechanometer  
> filum=1.64 kilometers  
> lightvorn=83 human lightyears
> 
> astrosecond=.273 seconds  
> nanoklik= 1 second  
> klik=1.2 minutes  
> breem=8.3 minutes  
> groon/joor=about 1 hour  
> orn=13 days  
> vorn=83 Earth years  
> Centavorn=8,300 years  
> megavorn/kilovorn = 83,000 years  
> gigavorn = 83 million years
> 
> online: conscious  
> offline: unconscious (also casual slang for dead)  
> deactivated: dead  
> stasis-lock, stasis: coma


End file.
